How to cover faces before WhatsApp, Facebook, or a group chat
A chat feels private until someone forwards the photo, screenshots a Status, or saves it to a camera roll. Cover the faces first - it takes seconds, and the unprotected original never leaves your phone.
Step by step
- Open the BlurBaby editor and pick the photo you were about to send.
- Let on-device detection find the faces, then drag a box over anyone it missed - other kids, a parent in the background, a classmate.
- Keep the default Blur cover, or use Redact / Sticker if you want the hide to read as deliberate.
- Download the protected copy (location and camera metadata are stripped) and send that file, not the original.
WhatsApp is not a locked room
Group chats get forwarded. Status disappears for viewers, but anyone can screenshot it or save it to Highlights-style albums on their own phone. "View once" only stops a casual save - it does not stop a second phone pointed at the screen.
Treat a WhatsApp photo like a post: if you would not put that face on a public feed, cover it before you tap send. The same applies to Facebook Messenger, a class parent group, and a family chat that includes people you have not met.
Facebook feed, Stories, and Messenger
A Facebook photo can be downloaded, reshared, and scraped even when your audience is "friends". Stories feel temporary and are not. Messenger threads get exported and screenshotted. Cover the face in the file you upload. Do not rely on an in-app sticker that sits on top of the original pixels - those can be stripped or ignored by a download.
If the same photo will also go on Instagram, the steps are the same. There is a dedicated guide for feed posts and Stories if that is the only place you share.
Do the covering on your device
Uploading a raw family photo to an online "blur" site means handing the unprotected faces to a server you do not control. BlurBaby runs in your browser: detect, cover, download. Nothing is uploaded to us. The export is a new file with no GPS or camera EXIF, so a school group chat does not also publish where you live.
FAQ
Does WhatsApp compression reveal a covered face?
No. The cover is baked into the pixels before you send it. Compression cannot recover what is no longer in the file.
What about a school or nursery WhatsApp group?
Cover every child you can identify, including kids who are not yours, before the photo hits the group. Other parents did not agree to a permanent, forwardable copy of their child's face.
Can I do this on my phone?
Yes. Open blurbaby.app in Safari or Chrome, protect the photo, and share the download into WhatsApp or Facebook. The photo never goes to our servers.