What is Redaction?

Redaction is the process of removing sensitive information from a record, video, or audio file. This can involve obscuring images, or muting sound. Redaction is essential for several reasons:

• To conceal sensitive images and protect vulnerable victims.

• To safeguard sensitive or personal data when evidence or footage is shared with third parties.

• Where necessary and appropriate, to obscure members of the public captured in the background of body camera footage, ensuring privacy and compliance with legal standards.

Why Redaction is Important

The importance of redaction lies in its ability to protect privacy by safeguarding the identities and confidential information of individuals captured in recordings. This is particularly relevant for body-worn camera footage where bystanders, victims, or informants might be recorded inadvertently. By redacting their faces or other identifying features, their privacy is maintained.

Moreover, redaction helps organisations remain compliant with data privacy laws and ethical guidelines. With the increasing emphasis on data protection, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, redaction ensures that organisations adhere to legal requirements when handling personal data.

Reveal’s DEMS 360 Redaction Software

DEMS 360 provides a comprehensive suite of tools for redacting sensitive video and audio content. The DEMS 360 redaction process involves several key features:

• Redaction Configuration: Users can configure the redaction functions via the 'Administration' tab under 'Redactor Settings', selecting from various appearances for video redactions—such as red boxes, blurred squares, pixelated squares, blurred ovals, or pixelated ovals.

• Video Redaction: DEMS 360 facilitates the redaction of video content to effectively blur sensitive areas. An algorithm automatically detects faces, while manual selections can redact other sensitive elements like street names or vehicle registration plates.

• Audio Redaction: This feature allows for the selective muting of confidential information in recordings. Administrators can choose to completely mute the selected audio segment or replace sensitive content with a bleep sound.

• Inverse Redaction: This allows users to keep a specific area of the video in focus while blurring the surrounding footage. Inverse Redaction is especially valuable for highlighting key individuals, obscuring sensitive locations, or simplifying redaction tasks in large or visually complex scenes.

• Non-Destructive Platform: DEMS 360 is a non-destructive platform meaning the original recording is never altered. Instead, a new redacted version is created and linked to the original within the system as 'Related Media'. This ensures that the integrity of the original evidence is preserved, which is crucial for legal proceedings.

• Metadata and Incident ID: When uploading the redacted file to DEMS 360, you can define an Incident ID and add notes, which by default are taken from the original file. Categories and teams can also be assigned if these optional metadata fields are enabled.

Reducing Redaction Times

Reveal GPU Redaction enhances the efficiency of redacting personally sensitive information (PSI), ensuring faster processing times and rigorous compliance with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE).

These enhancements not only speed up the redaction process but also ensure greater accuracy and reduced resource intensity, allowing law enforcement officers to concentrate on their primary duties without technological constraints.

How Reveal GPU Redaction Works

The Reveal team gathered insights from various law enforcement departments to address common challenges of video redaction.

"Redacting video, especially from body cameras, is a critical yet cumbersome task that often overloads our systems," explains Oliver Gibbs, Head of Product Management at Reveal. "Our customers needed a more robust solution to handle extensive video footage without sacrificing system performance, so we implemented our GPU Redaction service to meet these demands."

The newly enhanced GPU Redaction operates on a dedicated Azure GPU Virtual Machine (X64), selected specifically to boost processing speeds and protect the integrity of DEMS 360's core functionalities. This setup supports heavy loads, such as large volumes of body camera footage, and offered the opportunity to implement some processing enhancements.

How it works:

• Automatic Face Detection: Once footage is uploaded, the enhanced face detection technology scans each frame more effectively, increasing the accuracy of face identification. This improvement ensures that individuals are consistently recognised and tracked throughout the video.

• Sequence Grouping and Tracking: Faces identified are not only detected but are also grouped into sequences. The software uses sophisticated facial recognition supported by spatial logic to track these sequences across frames, maintaining continuity even when faces move or temporarily leave the frame.

• Extended Redaction Frames: To ensure complete privacy, the system automatically extends the redaction to six frames before and after a face is detected. This feature minimises the risk of missing any part of the sequence where the individual is visible.

• Customisable Redaction Borders: Administrators can set specific redaction parameters, such as the size of the border around detected faces. These settings are consistently applied across the Redactor user interface, ensuring uniformity in the redaction throughout the video.

Exporting the redacted footage is straightforward. Users can simply select the export option, choose the desired file format, and distribute the redacted video securely. Original footage remains secure and unaltered in the system, ensuring that data integrity is maintained throughout the redaction process.

Ready to Upgrade? Get in Touch Today!

Explore the benefits of GPU Redaction and enhance your existing DEMS 360 subscription. For more information or to schedule a demo, contact us directly or reach out to your usual Reveal representative.