How Witherslack Group achieved GDPR Video Compliance with Facit’s Identity Cloak

Overview: The UK’s Leading SEN Education Provider

Witherslack Group is the UK’s leading provider of specialist education and care for children and young people with special educational needs (SEN). With 36 schools and learning centres across England, the Group is renowned for its holistic and integrated approach to education, care and therapeutic support. Its commitment to improving outcomes is reflected in sector-leading Ofsted ratings, high levels of placement stability, high attendance rates and strong educational achievements for its young people.

At the heart of Witherslack Group’s success is its unique “Team Around the Child” model, which is a seamless integration of education, therapy and care that creates nurturing environments where children can thrive. The Group’s focus on developing life skills and independence, through its Futures programme, further strengthens each child’s potential to contribute positively to society.

Witherslack Group is the destination of choice for many parents, carers and education professionals looking for the best possible environment for children with additional needs.

The Challenge

Managing GDPR Compliance following Growing Video Requests

Across Witherslack Group’s 36 schools, CCTV is used extensively to support a safe, secure and well-managed environment. The footage serves multiple purposes, from safeguarding and behavioural monitoring, to health and safety assessments and incident reviews.

Incidents involving staff, pupils or external individuals occasionally arise.

With the introduction of GDPR, individuals gained more rights to access their personal data, including images captured on video.

Parents and guardians can submit Subject Access Requests (SARs) and ask for copies of any data held about their child, including video footage.

Processing SARs involving video brings specific challenges. Under GDPR, when sharing footage, data controllers must ensure any identifiable information about third parties, such as other pupils, staff or bystanders, is redacted. This includes visual identifiers like faces, name tags and vehicle number plates, as well as audio elements where voices could identify individuals.

As data awareness increased, Witherslack Group saw an increase in SARs involving video footage.

The number of SARS created a need for a reliable, scalable and user-friendly video redaction solution to manage requests securely and in compliance with data protection law.

The Solution: Facit’s Identity Cloak

To address this operational challenge, Witherslack Group turned to Facit’s Identity Cloak, an AI-powered redaction tool designed to create GDPR-compliant video.

After a thorough evaluation process, Kevin Spedding, Witherslack Group’s Data Protection Coordinator, chose Identity Cloak to redact video across the Group’s estate entirely in-house in a central location.

Why Identity Cloak?

Kevin explained several reasons for choosing Identity Cloak as the Group’s redaction solution:

Cost-effectiveness
The software offered robust functionality at a price that matched the Group’s budget.
Live environment testing
The ability to trial the solution in a real-world setting before purchase gave Witherslack confidence in the tool’s capabilities.
Comprehensive functionality
Identity Cloak delivered all the features promised, from automated tracking to simple manual editing.
High-quality support
Facit provided hands-on support and guidance throughout onboarding and implementation.
Regulatory confidence
The solution ensured the Group could meet GDPR obligations with confidence, consistency and security.

According to Kevin: “Identity Cloak was the right tool for the job. We could process requests in-house and stay compliant while keeping the privacy of all individuals in our CCTV footage safe.”

High Standards in Data Security and Compliance

Witherslack Group puts a premium not only on processing but also on storing and sharing of sensitive data, especially video footage. Identity Cloak integrates seamlessly into the Group’s existing secure IT infrastructure. Redacted videos are stored and accessed under strict conditions, with encrypted storage and strict access controls in place.

Footage is only shared externally in exceptional circumstances, such as a statutory legal request. Internally, access to redacted footage is restricted to a small number of senior staff with safeguarding or compliance responsibilities.

This approach ensures that the Group meets its GDPR obligations and exceeds them by following best practice in data handling, which further builds trust with families and stakeholders.

Using Identity Cloak in Practice

Identity Cloak’s rich set of redaction features makes it perfect for the dynamic environments found in Witherslack schools. Some of the features used regularly by the Group include:

Automated face and object detection
Quick redaction of individuals not relevant to a SAR.
Manual override
Allows staff to unblur specific individuals or events where needed; for example, during an incident review where a clear view of specific actions is required.
Video trimming
Allows users to extract and redact only the relevant parts of long CCTV footage, which reduces workload and improves viewer experience.

By combining automated redaction tools with manual editing options, staff can tackle even the most complex scenes with precision to keep all individuals private while preserving the context and integrity of the footage.

Measurable Benefits

Since implementing Identity Cloak, Witherslack Group has seen:

Faster response times to video SARs.
Cost-effective in-house processing.
Greater confidence in data protection across the organisation.
Improved awareness of GDPR compliance as the tool reinforces best practice.

Identity Cloak has also led to greater transparency with families and stakeholders. Parents and guardians making requests receive clearer, more professionally redacted video evidence which builds trust in the Group’s data handling processes.

Kevin explains that the variety and complexity of incidents in school environments means no two videos are ever the same.

“Each video has its own context and challenges. One might be a playground altercation; another footage of classroom damage. Identity Cloak gives us the flexibility to tailor our redaction approach to the scenario.”

Conclusion: A Model for GDPR Video Compliance in Education

Witherslack Group’s approach to data privacy and GDPR compliance is a benchmark for education providers across the UK. By using Facit’s Identity Cloak, the Group has turned a growing operational challenge into an opportunity to improve its data governance.

Kevin Spedding sums it up: “Identity Cloak is part of our GDPR compliance framework. We can respond to video SARs quickly, accurately and safely while keeping our pupils, staff and third parties safe.”

In an industry in which safeguarding, trust and compliance are key, Witherslack Group’s investment in best-in-class video redaction demonstrates its commitment to doing things that are right for its students, its staff and the wider community.