mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Defeating Image Obfuscation with Deep Learning

arXiv 1609.00408 ↗First posted 1 Sep 2016cs.CR cs.CVcited by 43

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Abstract (arXiv)

We demonstrate that modern image recognition methods based on artificial neural networks can recover hidden information from images protected by various forms of obfuscation. The obfuscation techniques considered in this paper are mosaicing (also known as pixelation), blurring (as used by YouTube), and P3, a recently proposed system for privacy-preserving photo sharing that encrypts the significant JPEG coefficients to make images unrecognizable by humans. We empirically show how to train artificial neural networks to successfully identify faces and recognize objects and handwritten digits even if the images are protected using any of the above obfuscation techniques.

Key facts. Cited by 43 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 1 Sep 2016.

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2021: 10; 2022: 9; 2023: 10; 2024: 3; 2025: 5; 2026: 6.

43 papers.

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  1. 2021A Study of Face Obfuscation in ImageNetcited by 83
  2. 2023Attribute-preserving Face Dataset Anonymization via Latent Code Optimizationcited by 43
  3. 2021GRNN: Generative Regression Neural Network -- A Data Leakage Attack for Federated Learningcited by 35
  4. 2022Sketching for First Order Method: Efficient Algorithm for Low-Bandwidth Channel and Vulnerabilitycited by 25
  5. 2021IdentityDP: Differential Private Identification Protection for Face Imagescited by 24
  6. 2021DP-Image: Differential Privacy for Image Data in Feature Spacecited by 23
  7. 2023Ethical Considerations for Responsible Data Curationcited by 17
  8. 2021Differentially Private Imaging via Latent Space Manipulationcited by 13
  9. 2021DeepBlur: A Simple and Effective Method for Natural Image Obfuscationcited by 13
  10. 2023Does Image Anonymization Impact Computer Vision Training?cited by 12
  11. 2023Unmasking Transformers: A Theoretical Approach to Data Recovery via Attention Weightscited by 11
  12. 2023LDP-Feat: Image Features with Local Differential Privacycited by 10
31 more
  1. 2024A Survey on Intelligent Internet of Things: Applications, Security, Privacy, and Future Directionscited by 10
  2. 2023A Survey on Vulnerability of Federated Learning: A Learning Algorithm Perspectivecited by 9
  3. 2021On Generating Identifiable Virtual Facescited by 8
  4. 2021Temporally coherent video anonymization through GAN inpaintingcited by 7
  5. 2021A Review on Visual Privacy Preservation Techniques for Active and Assisted Livingcited by 6
  6. 2023Modeling the Trade-off of Privacy Preservation and Activity Recognition on Low-Resolution Imagescited by 6
  7. 2023Face Encryption via Frequency-Restricted Identity-Agnostic Attackscited by 6
  8. 2022Fantomas: Understanding Face Anonymization Reversibilitycited by 4
  9. 2023AdvCloak: Customized Adversarial Cloak for Privacy Protectioncited by 4
  10. 2022Content-Aware Differential Privacy with Conditional Invertible Neural Networkscited by 3
  11. 2022Hierarchical Perceptual Noise Injection for Social Media Fingerprint Privacy Protectioncited by 3
  12. 2021Multitask Identity-Aware Image Steganography via Minimax Optimizationcited by 2
  13. 2022GMFIM: A Generative Mask-guided Facial Image Manipulation Model for Privacy Preservationcited by 2
  14. 2022Practical Digital Disguises: Leveraging Face Swaps to Protect Patient Privacycited by 2
  15. 2022StyleGAN as a Utility-Preserving Face De-identification Methodcited by 2
  16. 2026Now You See Me, Now You Don't: A Unified Framework for Expression Consistent Anonymization in Talking Head Videoscited by 2
  17. 2026From Pixels to Privacy: Temporally Consistent Video Anonymization via Token Pruning for Privacy Preserving Action Recognitioncited by 2
  18. 2022Lossy Compression of Noisy Data for Private and Data-Efficient Learningcited by 1
  19. 2024Enhancing User-Centric Privacy Protection: An Interactive Framework through Diffusion Models and Machine Unlearningcited by 1
  20. 2022Privacy Enhancement for Cloud-Based Few-Shot Learningcited by 0
  21. 2023Privacy-Preserving Medical Image Classification through Deep Learning and Matrix Decompositioncited by 0
  22. 2024Privacy Attack in Federated Learning is Not Easy: An Experimental Studycited by 0
  23. 2025FairDeFace: Evaluating the Fairness and Adversarial Robustness of Face Obfuscation Methodscited by 0
  24. 2025On the Importance of Conditioning for Privacy-Preserving Data Augmentationcited by 0
  25. 2025Beyond Anonymization: Object Scrubbing for Privacy-Preserving 2D and 3D Vision Taskscited by 0
  26. 2025A Distributed Framework for Privacy-Enhanced Vision Transformers on the Edgecited by 0
  27. 2025Privacy Blur: Quantifying Privacy and Utility for Image Data Releasecited by 0
  28. 2026Amplified Patch-Level Differential Privacy for Free via Random Croppingcited by 0
  29. 2026Privacy-Preserving Structureless Visual Localization via Image Obfuscationcited by 0
  30. 2026PPEDCRF: Dynamic-CRF-Guided Selective Perturbation for Background-Based Location Privacy in Video Sequencescited by 0
  31. 2026Beyond Classification: Task-Dependent Learnability under Privacy-Motivated Image Transformationscited by 0