Identifying and redacting captured data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12380235-B2
Application number	US-202016886038-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 28, 2020
Priority date	Oct 28, 2016
Publication date	Aug 5, 2025
Grant date	Aug 5, 2025

Abstract

An evidence ecosystem that includes a capture system that detects physical properties in the environment around the capture system and captures data related to the physical properties. The capture system analyzes the captured data in accordance with patterns to detect characteristics and patterns in the captured data. Upon detecting a characteristic or a pattern, the capture system records the identified data and alignment data that identifies the location of the identified data in the captured data. The capture system sends the captured data, identified data, and alignment data to an evidence management system for use in generating reports and producing redacted copies of the captured data for distribution or presentation.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a processing circuit; and
a memory system configured to communicate with the processing circuit, wherein the memory system includes executable instructions, and wherein in response to the processing circuit executing the executable instructions the processing circuit is configured to perform operations comprising:
analyzing, by the processing circuit, captured video data to determine whether the captured video data matches or is consistent with a pattern, wherein the pattern is configured to identify a visual property and a semantic property in the captured video data;
generating, by the processing circuit and in response to the captured video data matching or being consistent with the pattern, alignment data for the visual property, wherein the alignment data relates the visual property to the captured video data;
generating, by the processing circuit and in response to identifying the semantic property in the captured video data, second alignment data for the semantic property, wherein the second alignment data relates the semantic property to the captured video data;
comparing, by the processing circuit, the visual property to one or more rules, wherein the one or more rules are applied based on an intended use of the captured video data;
second comparing, by the processing circuit, the semantic property to the one or more rules;
determining, by the processing circuit, whether the visual property or the semantic property should be altered in the captured video data based on the comparing or the second comparing; altering, by the processing circuit and in response to determining that the semantic property should be altered in the captured video data, the captured video data to at least partially alter the semantic property in the captured video data based on the second alignment data.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuit is configured to perform further operations comprising:
altering, by the processing circuit and in response to determining that the visual property should be altered in the captured video data, the captured video data to at least partially alter the visual property in the captured video data based on the alignment data.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuit is configured to perform further operations comprising:
generating, by the processing circuit, a description of the visual property, wherein comparing the visual property to the one or more rules comprises comparing the description of the visual property to the one or more rules.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the semantic property is identified from at least one of visual data and audio data from the captured video data.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the pattern is further configured to identify an audio property in the captured video data.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the processing circuit is configured to perform further operations comprising:
generating, by the processing circuit and in response to identifying the audio property in the captured video data, third alignment data for the audio property, wherein the third alignment data relates the audio property to the captured video data;
third comparing, by the processing circuit, the audio property to the one or more rules;
determining, by the processing circuit, whether the audio property should be altered in the captured video data based on the third comparing; and
altering, by the processing circuit and in response to determining that the audio property should be altered in the captured video data, the captured video data to at least partially alter the audio property in the captured video data based on the third alignment data.

7. A method comprising:
identifying, by a processor, identified data in captured video data, wherein the captured video data comprises a plurality of frames, and wherein the identified data comprises a portion of visual data in at least one frame of the plurality of frames;
generating, by the processor, alignment data for the identified data, wherein the alignment data relates the identified data to an appearance of the identified data in the captured video data;
comparing, by the processor, the identified data to a rule, wherein the rule is applied based on an intended use of the captured video data, and wherein the rule is configured to identify a physical object appearing and captured in a visual portion of the captured video data that should be altered in the captured video data;
determining, by the processor, whether the identified data should be altered based on the comparing;
altering, by the processor and in response to determining that the identified data should be altered, the identified data in the at least one frame of the plurality of frames based on the alignment data;
identifying, by the processor, second identified data in the captured video data, wherein the second identified data comprises a second portion of data in at least a second frame of the plurality of frames;
generating, by the processor, second alignment data for the second identified data, wherein the second alignment data relates the second identified data to an appearance of the second identified data in the captured video data;
comparing, by the processor, the second identified data to a second rule;
determining, by the processor, whether the second identified data should be altered based on the comparing the second identified data to the second rule; and
altering, by the processor and in response to determining that the second identified data should be altered, the second identified data in at least the second frame of the plurality of frames based on the second alignment data.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising preparing, by the processor, a presentation copy of the captured video data, wherein the presentation copy includes the at least one frame of the plurality of frames in which the identified data has been altered.

9. The method of claim 7 , wherein the alignment data comprises at least one of a frame number, a start frame, an end frame, a frame count, a start time, an end time, a duration, an elapsed time, an absolute time, an image identifier, a pixel number, a frequency alignment, and an intensity band of a radiation.

10. The method of claim 7 , wherein the identified data appears in at least one different frame from the plurality of frames that the second identified data does not appear in.

11. The system of claim 2 , wherein the captured video data comprises a plurality of frames, wherein a first frame of the plurality of frames comprises the visual property, and wherein the altering the captured video data comprises removing the first frame from the plurality of frames.

12. The system of claim 2 , wherein the captured video data comprises a plurality of frames, wherein a first frame of the plurality of frames comprises the visual property, and wherein the altering the captured video data comprises altering a portion of data in the first frame comprising the visual property.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein altering the portion of data in the first frame comprises at least one of removing a pixel from the portion of data, blurring the pixel from the portion of data, obscuring the pixel from the portion of data, or replacing the pixel of the portion of data with a specific image.

14. The method of claim 7 , wherein altering the identified data in the at least one frame of the plurality of frames comprises removing the at least one frame of the plurality of frames.

15. The method of claim 7 , wherein altering the identified data in the

Assignees

• Axon Entpr Inc

Inventors

• Womack Marcus William Lee
• Reitz James Norton
• Shekarri Nache D
• Wagner Daniel J
• Hanchett Mark A

Classifications

• G06V40/162

  using pixel segmentation or colour matching · CPC title

• G06V20/46

  Extracting features or characteristics from the video content, e.g. video fingerprints, representative shots or key frames · CPC title

• G06V20/41

  Higher-level, semantic clustering, classification or understanding of video scenes, e.g. detection, labelling or Markovian modelling of sport events or news items (segmenting video sequences G06V20/49) · CPC title

• G06V20/52

  Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects (recognising microscopic objects G06V20/69) · CPC title

• G03B21/625

  Lenticular translucent screens · CPC title