Computer Vision PII Removal

Team: ML Engineers and project manager
Role: Product Designer
Timeline: 2 Months
Scale: Ford internal - thousands of employees
Technology: Google Cloud Platform, Sketch, Invision

Problem: Experimental self-driving cars capture 360 video while on the road around the globe. Privacy legislation and civic concerns make it necessary for Ford to ensure any personally identifying information (PII) is scrubbed from videos in our archive in order for experimental teams to share data. A repository of self-driving car videos that is searchable would be useful for engineering teams, so they can use the data without privacy concerns. Additionally, concerned citizens are able to call Ford directly via a hotline listed on the self-driving cars themselves to ensure their privacy is respected. We needed a portal for engineers to share data, marketing to be able to pull down self driving car videos, and legal to ensure to citizens that their privacy was being respected.

blurred image of a technical diagram representing the VUI — Storyboard for an engineering user

shark robot vacum and screenshot of the shark app — Storyboard for a legal/liability user

Process:

Worked with ML Engineers to diagram the model
Did stakeholder research to understand how an application utilizing the model would be beneficial at Ford and to determine requirements

Conducted user interviews to better understand how an engineering user, legal user, and customer liability user would all be able to leverage the platform
Determined requirements for an MVP application to serve engineering users with a research plan and backlog to expand the platform to all PII video masking needs at Ford
Created initial wireframes for an interface that would eventually serve the needs of all three user groups

screenshot showing wireframes and two UI mockups

excel, styleguide screenshot showing content

Outcome: The application was developed to legal specifications and the potential for the model's capabilities was introduced across working groups at Ford. Automated PII removal from video and a repository of privacy protected videos was incredibly valuable across the company as the self-driving car organization is global.