Genetec solutions help ensure organizations don’t have to choose between privacy and security

“Organizations should never have to choose between protecting the privacy of individuals and their physical security,” said Pierre Racz, President of Genetec Inc. (“Genetec”), a leading technology provider of unified security, public safety, operations, and business intelligence solutions. Putting these principles into practice, Genetec provides the necessary tools for security professionals to responsibly gather and manage data, particularly video, while supporting compliance with privacy laws around the world.

Genetec believes that the respect for individuals’ privacy should be the foundation of responsible and innovative design. Privacy by Design methodologies provide an essential road map for forward-thinking, ethical developers to build those principles into the products they create. This involves proactively embedding privacy into the design and operation of IT systems, networked infrastructure, and business practices from the first line of code to the third-party vendors selected for partnership and integration.

With this methodology in mind, Genetec solutions are designed to help customers enhance cyber hygiene and respect privacy by making data and privacy protection features more accessible and configurable.

In the physical security industry, protecting people and assets often requires organizations to collect personal data, as well as footage about individuals using public spaces in or around their facilities. But to meet the public’s expectations of privacy, and to comply with global regulations, access to this data or footage needs to be restricted and protected.

Available on-demand for the Genetec™ Security Center unified platform, the KiwiVision™ Privacy Protector™ automatically obscures individuals’ faces caught within a camera’s field of view, so security operators only see what they need to see. Being able to access unobscured footage requires an additional layer of access permissions that is only used when an event warrants an investigation. An audit trail is then maintained that shows who accessed the additional information, and why.

“Protecting the identity of people captured on video is an essential step in protecting their privacy,” said Florian Matusek, Genetec Product Group Director. “KiwiVision™ Privacy Protector™ is a great example of how we help our customers to meet privacy first standards of operation, and work to comply with local regulations.”

Just as protecting the anonymity of people captured on video security footage is an essential step in protecting their privacy, the ability to securely share information during investigations is also fundamental in protecting data integrity and individuals’ privacy.

The Genetec Clearance™ digital evidence management system allows law enforcement organizations to gather and share reliable evidence that protects everyone’s privacy. With built-in video redaction and secure user management, the identity of victims, bystanders, witnesses and police officers remains protected at all times.

Genetec Clearance helps end users define who has access to sensitive data and footage without slowing down investigations and incident response. This way, end-users have control over this data so that they can adjust protection methods and processes to comply privacy legislations around the world such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and Brazil’s General Protection Data Law (LGPD).

“As a society, the invasion of privacy buys us very little and costs us very much,” said Racz. “At Genetec we do our job by making tools that society needs, but most importantly, we make these tools to conform with the social contract of the societies in which we operate.”

To hear more about Pierre Racz’s thoughts on the importance of privacy, listen to the Engage podcast episode “First Principles”.