Samsung’s One UI 8.5 keeps private details safe in photos you send

Samsung is rolling out a handy update called One UI 8.5, and it includes a smart way to guard your personal details when you share pictures with friends or family. This new tool boosts your privacy by spotting and covering up sensitive stuff automatically. The update brings a bunch of fresh ideas to Samsung phones, and lately, we’ve seen hints about some of them pop up online.

The latest one to catch attention is a simple but powerful option that helps keep private information out of sight in the images you pass along to others. This tool, named Privacy Protection, works by softly blurring or blocking out key details in your photos right before you hit send. Imagine snapping a picture of your ID card or travel document to show someone—now you can quickly cover up things like your full address or birthdate that you’d rather keep to yourself.

To use it, just pick the photo you want to share on a phone with One UI 8.5. In the share menu, scroll to the “More” area at the bottom and select Privacy Protection. The phone then scans the image on its own to find any touchy bits and applies a gentle blur over them. From there, you get to pick how the cover-up looks and decide exactly which parts to mask or leave visible.

There’s even a quick button to flip between the changed version and the original so you can double-check. When it feels right, go ahead and share it or store the edited copy for later.

Before now, this kind of help was only available on Samsung devices in China through earlier One UI versions. But with One UI 8.5, it’s heading worldwide. It might tap into built-in smart tech, something like Google’s Gemini Nano, to check the photos without sending data elsewhere.