Blurring of traffic signs

Dearest Mapillary,

Let me repeat this, for the avoidance of doubt: traffic signs, while loitering at street corners, are not likely to suffer any consequences of their (in-)actions; they also do not qualify as human beings, and their presence near a per son can not possibly lead to that per son being identified

Therefore please build a ‘per-country’ database of official traffic signs, then compare any signs with that database before blurring them.

Ground for my message on this subject is trying to map the changed cycling infrastructure in the Belgian town of Sint-Niklaas. I fail, because the ‘onderbord’ (the sign added below the main sign to add or otherwise clarify restrictions was blurred.

With best regards,

3 Likes

Thank you for the feedback @koninklijke - the inadvertent blurring of some traffic signs is due to them being (falsely) identified as potential license plates by the CV/AI algorithm. Unfortunately there will be some false positives with every algorithm, and improving this is something we will add to the backlog - thank you for your patience in the meantime.

Dear @boris ,

Thank you for taking the time to reply;

may I offer a link to the most recent (20 mar’26) sheet of current signs - previous versions of signs will still loiter along ways, but a more ancient ‘sample sheet’ is not readily downloadable : https://wegenenverkeer.be/sites/default/files/uploads/documenten/Overzicht_V31.pdf

A different way to determine that it is indeed a traffic sign with ‘onderbord’ would be to recognise that both are on the same pole?

Met als immer vriendelijke groet (Dutch for ‘with as ever friendly greeting’),

Good resource, thank you @koninklijke - noted the backlog

It makes sense that the automatic blurring system would sometimes be a bit overcautious to avoid privacy issues. I’d rather see an occasional traffic sign blurred than have faces or license plates missed. Hopefully the detection keeps improving over time.

1 Like