5 Simple steps to implement Secure Redact in police departments
In law enforcement, video and audio evidence are now everywhere: body-cams, dash cams, CCTV, public-submitted video, etc. These recordings are critical for transparency, accountability, and justice - but they also raise serious privacy, legal, and administrative challenges. Sensitive personal identifiable information (PII) of bystanders, victims, or even suspects needs to be protected. Manual redaction is slow, error-prone, and expensive.
That’s where Pimloc’s Secure Redact comes in: an AI-powered platform that automates much of the redaction work (faces, license plates, screens, audio, etc.), provides tools for review, audit trails, chain of custody, and can integrate into existing evidence / video management systems.
Boasting partnerships with global leaders such as AWS, Microsoft, Cisco Meraki, and Eagle Eye Networks, the platform integrates smoothly into existing law enforcement infrastructure, from cloud storage to evidence management systems.
Here are 5 simple steps police departments can follow to effectively implement Secure Redact, reduce liabilities, speed up case work, and maintain public trust.
1. Assess current processes & needs
Before bringing any new tool in, you’ve got to know what your situation is. The aim is to identify where Secure Redact can help most, where your pain points are, and what requirements you need to meet.
Key actions:
Catalogue types of video/audio sources: body-worn cameras, fixed CCTV, vehicle dash cams, citizen-submitted video. What formats? How many hours per day/week/month? Who handles them?
Map manual redaction workflows: who currently does redactions, which parts are manual (faces, license plates, speech), how long it takes per case / per hour of footage.
Identify legal & policy requirements: local laws (GDPR, DPA, etc.), court disclosure rules, FOI/DSAR requests, subject access, internal policies. Also what chain of custody and audit trails are required in your jurisdiction.
Security and infrastructure constraints: where’s evidence stored, where can you process it (on-prem, in cloud), what integrations you already have (Digital Evidence Management Systems, VMS, etc.).
This assessment gives you the baseline: costs now, risk exposure, how much time wasted, where privacy breaches or legal exposure might happen.
2. Choose deployment mode & integration points
Secure Redact supports different deployment modes and can integrate with existing systems. Choosing correctly affects security, cost, speed, and adoption.
Options include:
Cloud / SaaS vs on-premise: If your department handles very sensitive data and has strict regulation / security policies, you may lean on-premise or private cloud. If lower sensitivity and bandwidth allows, SaaS may be faster to deploy. Secure Redact accommodates both.
Integration with DEMS / VMS: If your department already uses a Digital Evidence Management System (DEMS) or video management system (VMS) like Milestone, interfacing Secure Redact so that video clips are transferred seamlessly can reduce friction. Secure Redact already has verified integrations e.g. with Milestone’s XProtect.
Hardware / bandwidth infrastructure: If large volumes of high-resolution video are involved, ensure you have sufficient network / storage / compute to handle upload / processing / storage.
Set up pilot(s): It’s often wise to start with a pilot implementation in a limited division or unit (e.g. traffic, or body-cams) before rolling out department-wide. That allows you to discover issues, get feedback, define SOPs, and smooth adoption.
3. Configure & customize Secure Redact for policy + use cases
Once you know what you need and where you’ll put it, you must tailor the tool to match your policies, legal requirements, and workflows.
What to configure:
What kinds of PII to detect and redact automatically: faces, license plates, audio names/addresses, screens / textual content (e-mails, monitor screens, house numbers etc.). Secure Redact supports audio redaction (with Named Entity Recognition), redaction of screens, license plates, etc.
Levels of review & human oversight: Automated redaction is great, but you’ll need policy or practice for human review / editing of redactions, especially for high-stakes cases. Secure Redact offers review tools so users can edit, unredact where lawful, and confirm redactions.
Chain of Custody & Audit Trail: It is essential for evidence being submitted to courts. Secure Redact has added Chain of Custody and Audit Trail features that record every action on files (upload, edit, review, download, etc.) with timestamps and user IDs.
User permissions & roles: Who gets to upload; who reviews; who approves; who can unredact; who can export. Set access controls, logging, role-based permissions.
4. Train staff + build standard operating procedures (SOPs)
A tool is only as good as how people use it. Implementation needs training and clear procedures to avoid gaps, mistakes, privacy violations, or evidentiary problems.
Key elements:
Training: for all users (evidence handlers, officers using cameras, supervisors, legal / compliance units) on how Secure Redact works: what is automatically redacted; what needs manual action; how to review redacted content; how to handle chains of custody & audits.
SOPs / policy documents: written procedures that cover:
When to apply redaction (which types of cases, at what stage)
What level of redaction is required (for public-release vs courtroom vs internal investigations)
Who is responsible for review and approval
How to document any manual adjustments
Quality checks: periodically audit redacted content to ensure accuracy and consistency, to detect any systematic errors (e.g. faces or screens being missed). Use those audits to refine the configuration of detection models or user behavior.
5. Monitor, evaluate & scale
Even after go-live, you should regularly monitor and evaluate how well Secure Redact is working, then scale what works best.
Monitoring and evaluation:
Metrics to track:
Processing times (how many minutes/hours of footage processed per period, time per video)
Error rates or misses (PII left unredacted that should have been, or over-redaction)
Compliance requests (DSAR, FOI) turnaround times
Staff time saved / cost saved vs previous manual workflows
User satisfaction & trust from both internal users and public / legal stakeholders
Feedback loops: collect feedback from users (officers, evidence handlers, legal staff) about usability, pain points, false positives/negatives. Adjust settings or configuration accordingly.
Scale deployment: after a successful pilot or initial rollout, expand to other units, departments, or types of footage (e.g. traffic, patrol, admin). Possibly deploy for live video redaction or live anonymisation for CCTV / live public feeds if needed. Secure Redact supports live video anonymisation.
Stay current with updates: AI systems evolve, laws evolve. Secure Redact is adding new features like screen detection & redaction, scene text redaction, improved audio entity recognition. Regularly review updates and evaluate adopting relevant features.
Why this matters
Implementing Secure Redact properly isn’t just a tech upgrade - it’s risk management, efficiency, legal compliance, and public trust. The costs of getting redaction wrong can include legal challenges, privacy violations, loss of credibility, or suppressed evidence. Meanwhile, delays in providing redacted footage for legal disclosure can slow prosecutions, clog system workflows, and cost overtime or backlogs. A well-implemented redaction system can deliver speed, safety, and transparency.
FAQs
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It’s very good, but no system is perfect. Secure Redact claims over 99% accuracy in automatically identifying PII in video (faces, license plates, etc). Still, there will always be edge cases (occluded faces, low lighting, audio where speech is muffled, etc.). That’s why human review and audit trails are essential.
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Secure Redact recently added audio redaction capabilities with Named Entity Recognition (NER). It can automatically detect names, dates, places etc. from audio. You can generate transcripts and then redact. Users (reviewers) can filter by entity, review, remove content as needed.
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Yes, Secure Redact supports live video anonymisation in some use-cases. If configured properly, incoming video can be anonymized in real time (faces/license plates blurred) before it’s used or seen by external parties.
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Yes - Secure Redact is designed to help police departments comply with GDPR / UK Data Protection Act 2018, FOI, DSAR / SAR requests, etc. Specific compliance will depend on your exact law/regulation, so legal review is always needed. Also, chain of custody and audit trails help with legal defensibility.
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There will be upfront investment: purchasing or licensing Secure Redact; possibly infrastructure (servers / bandwidth) if not using SaaS; staff training; possibly modifying workflows / evidence systems to integrate. But the return is in saved staff hours, faster processing, lowered risk of mistakes or legal costs. Many police forces report dramatic time savings in redaction.
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This is crucial. Secure Redact includes audit trail / chain of custody features: every edit, review, access is logged, with timestamps, user identities. This helps document how evidence was handled. But you still need departmental policy to ensure no tampering, and legal review to ensure that redacted evidence still meets evidential rules in your jurisdiction.
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Yes - Secure Redact recently introduced screen anonymisation/redaction, for digital displays, MDTs, mobile phones in footage, monitors, etc. This fills a common gap where sensitive data appears on devices or screens.