General information

A privacy mask is an area that hides certain parts of the frame to ensure privacy. For example, when cameras are installed in an office, you can use a privacy mask to cover employees' computer screens to prevent the leak of logins, passwords, and other sensitive information. In critical infrastructure, you can use a privacy mask to hide sensitive elements such as control panels and screens containing critical data.

You can apply a privacy mask to the video image:

• when viewing live videos;
• when viewing the archive;
• on exported videos and still frames.

The detectors that support privacy mask:

• Face detector TV;
• Face detector VA;
• Face detector VL;
• Face detector and temperature control;
• Mask detector TV (detection of a medical or similar mask on the face);
• Mask detector VL;
• Mask detector VA;
• Person-based privacy masking;
• People masking (based on data from the pose detector).

Configuring a privacy mask

To configure a privacy mask, do the following:

1. Select the Camera object and click the button.

   The button is inactive if the text overlay button is active  (see Putting a text over the Surveillance window).  For your convenience, you can click the  button and configure the mask on a still frame. To undo, click this button again.

2. In the preview window, sequentially set the anchor points of the closed area that you want to hide when viewing the live video image. The selected area is masked with a mosaic mask.

   

   When an area is being constructed, anchor points are connected by a two-color dotted line, which outlines the area's borders.

   Action	Result
   Left or right click in the Surveillance window	Create a new anchor point of an area
   Right-click a created anchor point	Delete an anchor point of an area
   Point the cursor to an anchor point and holding down the left mouse button, move the mouse	Move an anchor point of an area
   Click the button	Delete an area

3. You can specify several areas.
4. Click the Apply button to save the changes.

Privacy mask configuration is complete. When you view a video image from this camera, the selected area is hidden.