How public safety agencies manage privacy and cybersecurity

Keeping track of everything that’s happening in your community can be a lot of work. That’s why public safety agencies have started to deploy and rely more on physical security technology to help out. Using high-resolution cameras and AI to monitor crowds, detect patterns, and guide emergency response also raises the importance of protecting personal data and securing systems from cyber threats.

Wondering how your public safety agency can protect data and privacy for both new and existing systems?

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Protecting privacy without compromising security

It’s important to prioritize privacy to make sure not just anyone has access to your community’s activities and identifying information. Everyone wants to be sure that any data collected about them is secure.  When public safety agencies need to share data with external stakeholders such as law enforcement, concerns about what information is being shared and how, are rising.

The good news is that according to the United Nations, approximately 80% of countries globally have laws or drafts protecting data and privacy. These rules limit how personally identifiable information (PII), including data and video, is collected, processed, and accessed. They set basic standards for storing and managing PII—but police departments can go beyond these standards.

Your video management system (VMS) can include embedded features to enhance privacy and cybersecurity. Security systems can have built-in tools like dynamic image pixelation to obscure identities. They can also provide audit trails of data access and robust cybersecurity measures.

And when it comes to protecting data, we can't just focus on threats coming from the outside. As the availability and number of integrations increase, so does the collaboration between systems. More entities than ever interact with security systems and access privileged data. That’s why having a comprehensive physical security strategy is crucial to mitigate risks.

 

 

Here are some key strategies public safety teams can use to protect data, ensuring its integrity, confidentiality, and availability:

Collect and store only what you need

The most important principle in ensuring your organization’s data security is to gather and retain only essential information. By reducing the volume of data you store, you minimize the potential impact in case of a security breach. Regularly review and audit the data you possess, disposing of any unnecessary information responsibly.

For example, an automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) system can collect and store a lot of data. Following privacy and cybersecurity best practices will help protect this information from unauthorized access. One way is to assign a case number each time an officer checks a license plate against your database. This practice ensures that data is used only for specific investigations or open cases, building trust for its proper use.

Limit access to personally identifiable information (PII)

To improve data security, you can restrict access to sensitive information. This means following organization-wide best practices for data sharing, such as anonymization to protect individual privacy. This involves removing personally identifiable details to add a layer of security.

 

 

Techniques like randomization, pseudonymization, tokenization, generalization, and data masking are essential for de-identification, a crucial process in anonymizing personal information while preserving its use for cases.

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Clearly communicate your privacy policy

One way to ensure rules are being followed is to clearly define them in your organization’s privacy policies. You can develop, maintain, and share this policy with municipal authorities and stakeholders to keep everyone in the loop about your processes. It should detail what data is collected, how it's stored, retention periods, authorized access protocols, and permissible circumstances for data use.

Choose vendors that prioritize privacy and cybersecurity

The more devices and solutions that you add to your ecosystem, the more your exposure to cybersecurity vulnerabilities increases. When you develop an effective strategy for vetting and selecting your vendors, you’re going to be able to do more than strengthen your data privacy and cybersecurity posture.

Consider vendors who include privacy protection by design. By doing so, you’ll build a team of partners who will work alongside you to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities so your cybersecurity posture is hardened against new threats.  

What’s important to understand is that privacy protection and cybersecurity go hand-in-hand. Limiting the collection and processing of physical security data and using the right tools can help you ensure higher levels of protection against threat actors.

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3 ways public safety agencies can better protect data

Statista's reports indicate a significant rise in cyber incidents targeting government organizations worldwide. Between December 2022 to February 2023 and June to August 2023, incidents increased by 60,000, reaching 100,000 in the latest period analyzed. From March to May 2023 alone, there were 55,000 recorded incidents.

There are many things that you can do to build resilience in your security technology infrastructure. The more layers you implement, the better protected your data will be. Here are some measures you can implement:

Encryption

Encryption is the process through which data is encoded so that it remains hidden from or inaccessible to unauthorized users. It helps protect private information and sensitive data and can enhance the security of communications between client apps and servers. In other words, when your data is encrypted, even if an unauthorized person or entity gains access, they cannot read it.

Authentication

Authentication verifies the identity of a user, server, or client application before granting access to protected resources. Client authentication methods may include usernames, passwords, and security tokens, while servers verify trusted third parties through digital certificates. Implement multiple forms of authentication to enhance security measures.

Authorization

Administrators use authorization to implement detailed user access privileges to protect the data in a security system, select the information that can be shared internally with partners and authorities, and control how long data is kept. You can automate the provisioning of these granular privileges through a Microsoft Active Directory integration with your security systems.

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Why system unification provides the best of both worlds

Many agencies choose a unified approach for data protection and privacy to enhance cybersecurity and protect personal information. Integrating all of your physical security technology onto a single, open platform simplifies cybersecurity management and standardizes measures across systems. That way, you can have one unified solution that centralizes data control, reducing the need to monitor multiple systems separately for cyber hygiene and system health.

A unified physical security system should include built-in defenses, unified tools for identifying vulnerabilities, and services to streamline updates, restrict access, and assess security readiness. Working with trusted technology vendors who prioritize privacy by design and promptly address security issues is crucial to maintaining strong cybersecurity and protecting public safety.