WatchGuard Video, a leader in law enforcement video evidence solutions has officially launched REDACTIVE – video and audio redaction software that expedites the redaction process and eases the learning curve for evidence technicians and law enforcement officers.
REDACTIVE’s advanced facial recognition technology automatically detects and identifies human faces, minimizing the elements of the video which are falsely detected as human, thus reducing the overall time spent manually searching and marking the video for redaction.
(WatchGuard’s REDACTIVE redaction software utilizes facial recognition technology to protect the identity of those who require it under FOIA requests of law enforcement video. Courtesy of WatchGuard Video and YouTube)
Users begin the redaction process by instructing the software to auto-detect any face in the video.
Once auto-detection is complete, the software allows the user to select and redact the face or faces throughout the video.
“The software is simple to use and extraordinarily powerful in its ability to accurately identify human faces quickly through an entire video clip,” said Steve Coffman, President of WatchGuard.
In the wake of the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 and ever-changing state legislation regarding treatment of video evidence, agencies are shouldering the burden of a significant increase in the quantity and complexity of redaction requests.
Redaction requirements can vary from the very specific (i.e. redaction of minors) to the very broad (i.e. redaction of uninvolved bystanders). The increase is leaving agencies struggling to react accordingly.
“Today’s redaction tools simply aren’t keeping up, forcing agencies to either miss submission deadlines or compromise their output by delivering video that blurs out the entire screen and everything useful,” added Coffman.
(Nothing happens in this video. It’s almost a waste of your time to watch it. If you do choose to watch, you will witness Officer Daniel Caffrey going out of his way to be nice after pulling someone over for driving straight through a stop sign. This boring video, however, became crucial evidence when the driver came to the police station and accused Officer Caffrey of drawing his weapon and threatening her. Courtesy of WatchGuard and YouTube)
“REDACTIVE’s technology reduces the complexity, allowing the evidence technician or officer to deliver the very best redacted video evidence in the shortest amount of time possible.”
WatchGuard has begun taking orders for REDACTIVE and will begin shipping December 1, 2016.
WatchGuard Video is the technology pioneer and market leader for law enforcement video systems and evidence management software.
One-third of the agencies in the United States utilize WatchGuard’s proprietary solutions to capture, manage and share digital video evidence using the most durable, reliable and highest-quality American-made products including the 4RE® in-car and VISTA™ body camera systems.
