Inpainting-Based camera anonymization
Over the years, the forensic community has developed a series of very accurate camera attribution algorithms enabling to detect which device has been used to acquire an image with outstanding results. Many of these methods are based on photo response non uniformity (PRNU) that allows tracing back a picture to the camera used to shoot it. However, when privacy is required, it would be desirable to anonymize photos, unlinking them from their specific device. This paper investigates a new and alternative approach to image anonymization task. The proposed method leverages image inpainting described as an inverse regularized problem, and does not need any priors about the PRNU to remove. Specifically, we show how PRNU pattern can be strongly attenuated by reconstructing each pixel of an image from its neighbors, only slightly affecting visual quality. Results confirm this approach as a viable alternative solution for image anonymization.