Challenges and objectives
The LA was concerned about video data privacy when required to share footage with third parties, and how it would fulfil subject access requests from third parties and the public. It need a solution which:
Ensured original files remained on-premise
Offered a cost-effective solution
Automated redaction
Worked with an aging system
Enabled a swift response to requests
All public councils face a complex set of pressures with continued cuts in funding, rising demand for services and economic growth challenges. But with the increasing focus on personal privacy and the increased regulation from GDPR, councils are facing huge concerns as to whether they can efficiently handle the expected increase in data subject access requests (DSARs) from often aging image capture systems.
This council heavily relies on its network of cameras that feed into the control room team to ensure the safe and expeditious movement of traffic, monitoring public spaces for safety and the detection/prevention of crime, and assisting with parking enforcement.
The Control Room Manager was concerned that there was an increasing demand on his team to produce CCTV footage for use by the Police and third party authorities in criminal and civil action cases. Added to this, the team receives many requests from members of the general public under freedom of information, regarding access to recorded data. With the advent of GDPR, it meant that redacted footage had to be provided and the LA’s existing CCTV system had previously no means of achieving this. Plus, the challenge was amplified by the age of their image capture software.
The Council needed a system which was compliant with data privacy regulations (GDPR) and worked on its existing infrastructure to minimise costs. It needed to be an intuitive application to automate redaction, designed to work with any image capture system without requiring files to be exported off site.
