A guide to CCTV redaction software for public spaces
CCTV camera footage in public spaces can include foot traffic in museums or entertainment venues, commuters on trains or buses, and people present in civic spaces.
When sharing any of those video recordings with law enforcement, insurance companies, or in response to subject access requests (SARs), it’s necessary to blur personally identifiable information for anyone who’s not directly involved in the request to stay compliant with GDPR.
In this article, we’ll discuss common challenges of anonymising footage of public spaces and different CCTV redaction options available to organisations, including our video redaction platform, Identity Cloak.
6 common challenges of CCTV footage redaction for public spaces
Organisations that need to blur personal data in public space videos need to be able to redact crowded videos, automate licence plate blurring, and complete video anonymisation in a timely manner to react to incidents.
Below, we’re going to talk more about these challenges and what organisations need to be able to overcome them.
1. Processing footage of moving crowds
What makes it challenging: public space video footage often has multiple people moving at the same time, frequently overlapping with each other or with other types of identifiable data, such as signage.
Not all video redaction solutions can handle face or body blurring accurately in these conditions, leading to longer clean-up times.
How to overcome this challenge: before purchasing a tool, test it on the busiest CCTV footage you have, so that you can make sure it can handle it without creating a lot of manual cleanup work for your team.
2. Vehicles and people captured on video
What makes it challenging: in many cases, public space footage also includes vehicles and licence plates. When video redaction solutions don’t automatically recognise and blur licence plates, security teams need to complete this redaction manually.
In addition to that, not all types of footage captured outside will be high-quality or easy to process. Fish-eye cameras and low-visibility environments can be harder to process for automated redaction tools.
How to overcome this challenge: to avoid time-consuming cleanup, create a small collection of CCTV footage videos you commonly need to redact and run the tools you’re considering through a series of tests to compare their outputs.
3. Time pressure for blurring incident footage
What makes it challenging: especially in cases of theft, safety incidents, or car accidents, companies need to quickly redact available footage to share with law enforcement agencies. It can be especially challenging if you need to compile footage from multiple cameras before redacting the final video clip.
How to overcome this challenge: decide what “good enough” processing time looks like, and look for solutions that can match it — or outperform it. For Identity Cloak customers, for example, video redaction takes 12 minutes on average.
4. New requirements, such as Martyn’s Law
What makes it challenging: with changing legal requirements, you may have to set up CCTV systems for the first time. For example, the recent Martyn’s Law requires venues with a 800+ people capacity to have video surveillance in place.
How to overcome this challenge: make sure you’re aware of CCTV-related rules and regulations for your industry, including SAR processing timelines or data protection requirements.
5. High volumes of SARs
What makes it challenging: especially in cases of security incidents or events involving multiple parties, organisations may need to process multiple requests at the same time.
If you’ve been using a “good enough” video redaction tool, your team might end up scrambling to complete redaction within the required timeline.
How to overcome this challenge: make sure that you’ll be able to process a high volume of requests within the required timeline without having to outsource footage or overwhelm your team with manual clean-up tasks.
6. Correctly estimating video redaction expenses
What makes it challenging: when researching video redaction tools, comparing pricing across different products can be complicated. Some companies charge based on minutes, which makes it hard to predict true redaction costs. Others have hidden fees, for example, for cloud storage, which also makes budgeting more complicated.
How to overcome this challenge: start with an estimate for how many videos you expect to need to process or export — and their average duration.
Based on that, you’ll be able to compare pricing for different tools with per-minute pricing, all-in-one pricing, or per-video pricing, based on the average video duration and the number of videos you expect to redact in a specific period of time.
Software options for CCTV footage redaction
Choosing a video anonymisation solution for your organisation will depend on your budget, team capacity, and VMS setup. Below, we’ll compare different types of CCTV blurring options and share our tips on choosing the best one for your company.
Built-in VMS editing software
Some video management systems come with built-in video editing software tools that can be used to redact footage.
In most cases, they’re not blurring personal data automatically. Instead, you need to redact faces, IDs, credit card information and licence plates frame by frame, which can be very time-consuming.
VMS plug-in tools
If you’re already using a VMS and don’t want to add separate software tools, you may be able to redact video footage with an add-on solution. For example, Identity Cloak can be used as a Milestone plug-in.
Standalone software
For some organsations, it may be worth exploring desktop or cloud-based video redaction tools that automate video redaction of CCTV footage, saving teams time and making it easier to combine and blur footage across multiple CCTV systems.
Below, we’ll break down criteria for choosing a CCTV video redaction solution based on industry challenges and typical requests for local governments, transportation authorities, and venues and museums.
How to choose the best CCTV redaction software for public spaces
In this section, see our suggestions on how organisations in different industries, from local governments to transportation, can find a video redaction tool that’s right for their needs. You can also download this evaluation template to compare different tools by industry-specific requirements.
CCTV redaction software capabilities for local governments
Local governments frequently need to blur parking lot and public office footage for incident reporting, rules enforcement, plus media, insurance, and general public requests.
Ideally, CCTV tools for local governments can handle both a higher number of requests and are compatible with legacy systems (if necessary). For example, the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court added Identity Cloak’s plug-in to the Milestone XProtect Smart Client when they started receiving consistent footage requests.
The right redaction tool should also help local government entities plan for the future with predictable pricing.
CCTV redaction software features for venues and museums
Entertainment venues and museums need to process footage of crowds, blur both foot traffic and licence plates on moving vehicles, and, for venues with control rooms, anonymise live footage to prevent theft and monitor employee performance.
They also need a simple solution that can be easily used by different security team members and allow them to respond quickly to security incidents. Tate Museum relies on Identity Cloak to provide GDPR-compliant incident footage to law enforcement in 15 to 30 minutes, instead of 3 to 5 days.
Redaction software features for transportation and logistics companies
Transportation agencies may need to redact footage inside buses or trains and in waiting areas as a proof of fare dodging and to report incidents to law enforcement agencies. In some cases, they may also need to blur personal information from bodycam footage, including audio track redaction..
The best solutions for transportation and logistics companies are easy to use, so that anyone on the team can redact videos, process footage quickly, and blur different types of footage with the same level of accuracy.
Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ), Ireland’s state-owned public transport group uses Identity Cloak to automatically redact high volumes of complex footage in-house instead of outsourcing blurring to a third party.
In logistics, Kingston, one of the world’s largest independent memory and storage companies, integrated Identity Cloak with Milestone VMS to resolve disputes about missing items, incorrect shipments or delivery issues, while staying compliant with GDPR requirements.
Identity Cloak for public space video redaction
Our software, Identity Cloak, helps organisations like Tate Museum, Wembley Park, and Nottingham City Transport quickly redact CCTV video footage. You can read more about our solutions, including Identity Cloak Desktop and Identity Cloak Milestone XProtect plug-ins, below.
Identity Cloak Desktop Version
We’ve built Identity Cloak to make it easy for busy teams to blur personal information in videos without spending a lot of time on manual work, or having to learn complex features.
Watch a video here to learn how identity cloak works.
The video redaction workflow is automated, so that you can adjust the blur, unmask the person of interest, and switch between different blur types with one click.
Identity Cloak also supports audio redaction and can be used with any type of CCTV system — legacy formats can be easily imported with our screen recording feature.
Our plans are based on the number of videos you expect to redact with no limits on video clip duration or file size.
“After trying several different facial recognition systems, Facit has always come out on top.
Facit saves us time – a 1-minute video takes 8 minutes to process. That’s start-to-finish – uploading the video, processing and exporting.”
– Geoff Shepherd, CCTV Supervisor, Nottingham City Transport
Read more about the desktop version here.
Identity Cloak Milestone plug-ins for video redaction
Our Milestone Playback plug-in works directly inside XProtect, so that teams don’t have to export and re-import footage into a stand-alone solution.
However, if you’re working with multiple CCTV systems, you can also import legacy footage as necessary.
The plug-in also automates personal information detection and tracking for people and vehicles, but currently doesn’t support audio redaction.
Find out more about our Milestone plug-ins here or reach out to our sales team for a demo.
Identity Cloak Free Trial
Start your 7-day trial to see how Identity Cloak can automate CCTV footage redaction and save your team’s time.
