Privacy in surveillance
Remote monitoring meets privacy protection
Video surveillance and remote monitoring are powerful tools for increasing security and safety, gathering business intelligence, and improving operational efficiency. However, they can also raise public concerns about privacy and data protection. With Axis, you get not only devices that deliver the information you need, but also tools and solutions that help you comply with local regulations, trade union rules, GDPR, and your own policies. Options include surveillance privacy for fixed areas, for dynamic indoor and outdoor scenes, and for bystanders in investigations.
Apply privacy masking to fixed areas
When using video surveillance indoors or outdoors, you may encounter large or small areas you aren’t allowed to monitor. This could include a neighboring property, a payment terminal or ATM where people enter PIN codes, or a computer monitor at a nurse’s station. Here, static privacy masking – a standard feature with Axis cameras – is ideal. Protect exactly the area you need to with a permanent opaque or mosaic mask on all live and recorded video. And, to ensure surveillance privacy is maintained even if a camera shifts position and the field of view changes, static privacy masking in a pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera is fixed to the camera’s coordinate system.
Typical system setup
Get real-time privacy masking for dynamic scenes
For business intelligence purposes, you need access to insights, not identifying information. Anonymize faces, license plates, or other sensitive details with AXIS Live Privacy Shield. This edge-based indoor and outdoor privacy masking application lets you choose what you see and what you don’t in live and recorded video. For example, monitor the number of arriving vehicles without capturing license plates. Audit safety compliance without capturing employee faces. Or monitor occupancy levels in a hospital waiting room without compromising privacy. You can also deliver a separate video stream with no masking, so you can access forensic details in case of an incident.
Typical system setup
Ensure privacy by design
Some non-visual surveillance technologies naturally protect privacy. Thermal cameras – for example, to detect possible intruders near a fence line – use heat generated by people and objects to produce images of their shape. The settings you choose control how much detail is visible. In wide outdoor areas, Axis radar gives you 24/7 wide-area coverage with complete surveillance privacy. It provides an intruder’s exact position, speed, and angle of movement, without collecting identifying data. Use thermal and radar solutions alone or, when needed, with a video surveillance system for visual confirmation.
Typical system setup
Redact for bystander privacy
Sometimes, surveillance privacy requires you to anonymize footage after it’s recorded. If you have to share footage for investigations, legal proceedings, or public information requests, you’ll first have to comply with any applicable regulations that protect the privacy of bystanders. Easily mask individuals, objects, or areas in a scene that are not of interest to an investigation using the redaction tool in AXIS Camera Station Pro, or a redaction solution from one of our partners. You can, for example, mask only selected moving objects or mask all still and moving objects except persons of interest.
Typical system setup
Data protection
While data protection is not dealt with here, how video surveillance data is handled is also an important aspect of ensuring privacy protection. See Cybersecurity to learn more about it.
Relevant industries
Industrial
An industrial plant is an intricate web of assets, people and procedures. Axis solutions enable situational awareness and provide cost-effective ways to improve processes and productivity as well as protect valuable parts of the plant.
Retail
You might associate surveillance networks with security and loss prevention, and it’s true that Axis makes your stores safer. But did you know you can also use our hardware and analytics to increase your revenue and reduce your costs?
Healthcare
Healthcare facilities the world over have long trusted Axis to protect people and property. But now more than ever, our technology also helps you treat more patients with fewer resources – safely and efficiently.
More industries
Axis provides a complete range of network video, audio and access control solutions for a broad spectrum of industries and customer needs. Our flexible and secure technology is easy to integrate and scales to match your growth.
Related resources
Ensuring privacy
Public awareness over privacy rights has been heightened by initiatives like GDPR in Europe and FISMA in the U.S.
Privacy in surveillance
This white paper can guide and help you to find the right tools and technologies to safeguard privacy.