industry focus
Now you see them, now you don't!
GDPR in Europe and FISMA in the US have completely transformed the loss prevention and risk landscapes in terms of the restrictions placed upon the ever-evolving world of CCTV and video analytics as more forensic technology became a prime focus for privacy campaigners.
Since their legal implementation, the rules of engagement around legitimate law enforcement came into direct conflict with the rights of individuals and their privacy in all strata’s of society, from work to leisure, which not only created challenges for LP professionals trying to identify alleged wrongdoers in stores, but also effectively put the brakes on the roll-out of emerging technologies such as facial recognition.
Navigating a path to enable retailers to capture evidential images of suspects while removing pictures of innocent by-standers created major efficiency and cost challenges for many LP and health and safety teams investigating accidents and slip and trip claims, with footage having to be sent away to specialist software companies for redaction, often at great expense.
But thanks to the award-winning AXIS Live Privacy Shield, the focus has shifted to only capturing the images of interest whilst masking all other background activity, including the identities of other actors in the scene.
Privacy Shield is a new feature to AXIS Camera Edge ACAP (AXIS Camera Application Platform) which adds value to ACS, a fully-featured video management software ideally suited for medium-sized operations such as schools, retail stores and manufacturing sites.
It is powerful and easy to use with an intuitive interface so anyone can manage it, handle incidents and quickly export high-definition video evidence as well as providing redaction software for post-event video sharing as a free add-on service as part of the ACS package.
Released last year, AXIS Redaction & Live Privacy Shield - the market’s only edge analytics software for cameras that masks people in real time in video streams at up to full frame rate - was highly commended in the Retail Fraud Awards 2020 Best Newcomer category
“The solution addresses privacy rules and regulations, and at the same time, lets users see movement and activity on their premises. Because it runs directly on selected AXIS cameras, no expensive servers are required, and it is easy to scale,” said Graham Swallow, Retail lead for Northern Europe.
Soon to be available on AXIS bodyworn cameras as well, forensic redaction allows the user to redact areas of no interest by applying dynamic masking to areas of change - essentially moving people and objects in to comply with GDPR when used as evidence or for training purposes.
“Not only would users be able to choose between low resolution or mosaic masking, but they would also be able to set the level of masking required and decide how often the background should automatically update,” added Graham.
Masking provides the greatest privacy protection, effectively eliminating the collection of personal data while enabling movements to be seen. Mosaic masking shows moving objects in very low resolution and allows users to better distinguish forms
By default, dynamic masking is applied to the camera’s entire field of view, but users can choose to define areas where masking is not applied- for example, if there is a conveyer belt with moving objects that they want to be able to see. Users can also configure the system to deliver a separate video stream without dynamic masking, so authorised viewers can access details in case of an incident.
AXIS Live Privacy Shield is suitable for remote video monitoring or recording in areas where surveillance is otherwise problematic due to privacy rules and regulations. It is ideal for processing, manufacturing and logistics applications when video surveillance is primarily used to monitor processes. Other potential applications are in retail, healthcare, education and at government facilities.
Apart from safeguarding privacy, the key benefits include reliable, real-time dynamic masking at high frame rates and cost effective, high-performance edge-based problem-solving. It is also easy to install, configure and manage and is available globally to help manage the more nuanced approaches and application of privacy rules in different territories
This all adds up to video redaction users being able to simply and safely edit video footage before exporting it to third parties such as law enforcement agencies. The masking keeps the original video stream intact so that it can also be exported and used as evidence in court.
Thanks to edge-generated analytics data from the camera, it is also possible to automatically generate masks for all moving objects in a scene.
This managed and carefully choreographed ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ approach allows users to pinpoint the relevant images while cutting out extraneous data and removes the risk of litigation down the line and gives retailers confidence to take investigations forward.
