How Identity Cloak Helps Conwy Council reach compliance excellence

#Introduction

Local government never stands still. Councils have to balance transparency with privacy, public service with shrinking budgets and operational efficiency with tighter regulations. This is notably evident with the processing of CCTV footage.

At Conwy County Borough Council, the compliance balancing act became more complicated. Like most UK councils, Conwy has an extensive CCTV network that supports public safety, traffic enforcement and environmental monitoring. With that comes a flow of data requests from the public, solicitors, insurers and the police.

For Emma Dowell, CCTV Manager for public space protection, the question wasn’t whether to modernise redaction processes, but how to do it in a way that was compliant, efficient and cost effective.

The answer was Facit’s Identity Cloak.

#The Challenge: A System Under Pressure

Across the UK there are millions of CCTV cameras in operation, many of which are under the control or influence of public authorities. Councils rely on this surveillance infrastructure to deter crime, manage traffic, monitor anti-social behaviour and enforce parking regulations.

Parking is a critical revenue stream. According to the RAC Foundation, UK councils generate more than £1 billion a year from parking related income. Parking penalties lead to disputes, appeals and legal claims, each of which may involve video evidence.

Where video exists, requests follow.

Subject Access Requests and the Reality Behind Them

Under the UK GDPR, individuals have the right to access their personal data. In practice, that includes CCTV footage. While Emma Dowell says subject access requests at Conwy are relatively low, they’re not straightforward.

Most requests come from incidents such as ‘trips and falls’ or road traffic collisions. Many are from solicitors operating on a “no win, no fee” basis who encourage individuals to get footage to support claims. In those cases, the request is not just administrative, it’s financial and legal in nature.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is clear: when responding to subject access requests (SARs), only the requester’s personal data should be disclosed. Everyone else in the footage must be obscured.

That redaction requirement turns even a short clip into a technical challenge.

A Patchwork of Workarounds

Before they adopted a specialist redaction solution, Conwy used a mixture of workarounds that will be familiar to many local authorities.

In some cases, requesters were invited into council offices to view footage privately. While practical, this approach does not sit well with GDPR principles. Informed requesters insisted on getting a copy of their data, which can’t be provided lawfully without proper redaction.

When redaction was necessary, the task fell to the council’s marketing team. This was far from ideal. Pixelating footage manually is slow work, especially when multiple people move in and out of frame. A single request could take hours, sometimes days of staff time.

Emma Dowell also looked into outsourcing. But quotes came back at around £400 per video, which quickly made this option unsustainable in the public sector.

#The Wider Constraints Facing Councils

These operational challenges sit within a broader context. UK local authorities are under significant financial pressure. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has documented a decade of decline in local government spending power as demand for services increases.

At the same time, regulatory expectations are tightening. The appointment of William Webster as the new Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner signals a renewed focus on surveillance oversight. Within the Public CCTV Managers Association, there’s a growing expectation that previously voluntary codes of practice will become mandatory.

Councils face a difficult equation:

Rising expectations around transparency and compliance
Increasing complexity of data requests
Limited budgets and constrained procurement processes

Something had to change.

#The Solution: A Deliberate Move to In-House Capability

Rather than continue with inefficient or expensive alternatives, Conwy Council decided to bring redaction in-house. After a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA), Emma chose Facit’s Identity Cloak.

The DPIA was critical. Any technology handling sensitive personal data must meet strict security and compliance requirements. Identity Cloak met those criteria and avoided one of the key concerns in public sector procurement: facial recognition.

Although the software uses machine learning to detect and track individuals, it’s not facial recognition technology. This distinction matters. Facial recognition systems often trigger ethical, legal and public trust concerns, whereas Identity Cloak focuses on anonymisation.

From Manual Effort to Intelligent Assistance

The change in workflow was immediate. Instead of manually identifying and pixelating individuals frame by frame, the software automates detection.

As Emma says: “It’s very quick. The software automatically detects heads, bodies and licence plates when we load a video. And the manual selection option enables us to track people who may be wearing masks or walking in and out of frame.”

In practice this means:

Footage can be processed quickly without specialist editing skills
Moving subjects are tracked automatically across frames
Edge cases, such as partially obscured individuals, can still be handled manually

The result is a system that combines speed with control.

Navigating Legal Grey Areas

One of the more subtle benefits of having in-house redaction capability is flexibility. Not all footage requests fit neatly into the category of a subject access request.

Some requests may come from:

Law enforcement agencies
Solicitors acting under specific legal grounds
Insurance companies investigating claims

In these cases, redaction requirements may differ, or may not apply at all. Councils generally assess these requests on a case-by-case basis, sometimes redirecting requesters to other authorities such as the police.

Previously this created delay. Now Conwy can respond quickly and decisively to reduce the need for prolonged back and forth discussions.

#Results: Efficiency Gains that Change the Conversation

The most immediate change has been in efficiency. What was once a slow manual process is now streamlined and predictable.

Redaction that took hours, or even days, can now be done in minutes. This has had a noticeable impact on internal workflows and frees up staff to focus on their main roles rather than video editing.

There’s no need to have long debates with the data requester. We can supply redacted footage quickly and efficiently. Job done.

Emma Dowell CCTV Manager, Conwy County Borough Council

#Financial and Operational Impact

The financial case for in-house redaction is strong. By avoiding outsourcing costs, the council has effectively avoided a variable ‘per request’ cost and established a controlled, scalable capability.

Having an in-house redaction solution also opens up new opportunities. Emma Dowell is responsible for CCTV operations across six local authorities. With Identity Cloak in place there is the potential to support other authorities, notably those that no longer have dedicated control rooms owing to budget cuts. The current state of redaction capabilities means:

No reliance on external providers
More control over turnaround times
Ability to offer shared services across authorities

In a sector that is increasingly focuses on collaboration and efficiency these are big benefits.

Strengthening Compliance and Confidence

Compliance is not just about avoiding fines; it’s about public trust. Councils risk censure from the Information Commissioner’s Office and any data breach can damage their reputation.

By using Identity Cloak Conwy has reduced those risks. The council can now respond to requests in a consistent, auditable and GDPR compliant way.

Conwy Council’s confidence in its redaction capabilities has had an interesting side effect: it has enabled greater transparency. The council has published the locations of its CCTV cameras in the knowledge that it can handle any increase in data requests that will follow.

#Future Proofing Video Compliance

Although SAR volumes are currently manageable for Conwy, the landscape is changing. Public awareness of data rights and regulatory expectations will stimulate SARs.

Conwy is now ready. The same applies to more complex footage such as body worn cameras. While these requests are currently handled by the legal team, Identity Cloak can support:

Dynamic fast-moving footage
Audio redaction when required
Multi-subject environments

In other words, the council has future-proofed its video redaction.

#Conclusion: A Model for Local Councils

Conwy County Borough Council’s experience is a clear example of how local authorities can adapt to modern data protection challenges without compromising efficiency or stretching budgets.

Video redaction is not going away. If anything, it’s becoming more central to public services. CCTV networks are expanding, parking enforcement is a significant revenue stream and public awareness of data rights is increasing.

Against that backdrop manual processes and ad hoc compliance solutions are no longer viable.

By using Identity Cloak Conwy has:

Replaced inefficient workflows with a streamlined in-house solution
Reduced costs while improving compliance
Acquired the potential to support other authorities
Strengthened transparency

What stands out is not just the redaction technology but the council’s altered outlook. Redaction is no longer a burden or a bottleneck. It’s just another part of the council’s compliance workflows.

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Nottingham City Transport has a large network of buses - 289 vehicles in its fleet with over 4,000 cameras – and it needed a redaction software which was quick and had minimal manual intervention.

Facit software is quick and easy to use. It’s so intuitive that all of our staff can use it more or less straight away. The change over from the old system to the new system was very, very quick.

Geoff Shepherd, CCTV Supervisor

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It takes us one or two minutes to retrieve the video and usually about half an hour to process and output a compliant record of events. That’s compared to the hours it used to take to redact video and the resource drain on Wembley Park. Identity Cloak is easy to use.

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