Video redaction is a technique that allows for critical information, such as PII (Personally Identifiable Information), to be hidden from the public eye. With privacy concerns and compliance requirements, it’s increasingly becoming a necessity for law enforcement agencies, government organizations and even commercial enterprises across the world. To help in the process, several video redaction software has emerged in the market today.  

With so many to choose from, it can be difficult to pick the one that is ideally the best suited to what you are looking for – a redaction tool that provides a range of features, accurate results, is easy to use and may also be automated.  

Fortunately for you, you are at the right place. This blog will compare 7 redaction tools available today on the features that we think are necessary. We have compiled this list of the best video redaction software based on our understanding of the market and our decade of experience in this domain.  

What Is a Video Redaction Software? 

Redaction is the process of hiding or concealing private, confidential, and vulnerable information from the viewing and accessibility of the public, or individuals it is not intended for. In videos, this may be faces and people, their social security numbers, date of birth, identity card and financial information, vehicle license plate numbers, and similar information.  

A video redaction software is a simple and easy-to-use tool that allows a layman user to select objects of interest and redact them in a single click.  

Unlike video editing tools such as Adobe After Effects, where you need to manually draw a box around the subject of interest, a video redaction software will use AI to ease the process for you. 

The software usually works by using AI to track the subject of interest (such as a running person) and placing a layer mask over the video stream, and within it covers the redacted elements. This cover can be a box selection, within which the elements may be blurred, pixelated, or filled with opaque colors.  

7 Big Names in Video Redaction Today 

Here’s a list of the best video redaction software and we have compared them feature-by-feature to help you make an informed decision. 

VIDIZMO’s Redaction Tool

VIDIZMO has its constantly improving, proprietary Redaction Tool. The tool is available as a standalone product and bundled as an add-on with their EnterpriseTube and Digital Evidence Management System.  

The company is of the select few providers of digital evidence management systems that made their name on to the “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Digital Evidence Management Solutions for Law Enforcement 2020 Vendor Assessment" report. Amongst the mentions, VIDIZMO was one of the few that provides redaction through on-demand face detection in their evidence management systems.  

The tool uses VIDIZMO Indexer to power its AI. This allows VIDIZMO to perform automatic redaction through on-demand detection. Redaction can be done for faces, people, custom-defined objects such as license plates, addresses, symbols, weapons like guns & rifles, and other elements. The tool, despite being efficient as an automatic tool, can also be utilized manually for additional accuracy. 

Key Features of VIDIZMO's Redaction Tool: 

• Automatic and Manual Redaction, meeting current market demands 
• A multitude of deployment options – on the cloud, on-premises, or as SaaS 
• Simplicity in terms of use and browser-based application 
• Redaction for faces, objects, people, license plates, screens and more 
• Data security through access control and security protocol integration 
• Option to blur, pixelate or cover 
• Liberty to label redacted elements 
• Elements detected will be tracked throughout the video – can be specified otherwise 
• Integration capabilities through widgets and APIs 
• Original files may be retained or overwritten 
• Can be provided as a standalone tool, or an add-on with either of VIDIZMO’s products

Veritone Redact 

Veritone launches its Redact tool for redaction of law enforcement data.  The tool makes use of aiWARE to power its AI for auto-detection of these elements. The detection results are displayed in chronological order alongside the tool’s video player. The player supports downloads of the redacted file alongside an audit log of all the changes made to it.  

Key Features of Veritone Redact: 

• Automatic and Manual redaction 
• Specifically designed for digital evidence and law enforcement 
• Can redact faces, license plates and laptop screens, as well as custom-defined elements 
• Can track elements in the video 
• Integrated with Veritone’s digital evidence system 
• Works for video, audio and images 
• Redacted files can be downloaded 

Axon Redaction Assistant 

Axon is one of the oldest contenders in the law enforcement industry. Formerly known as TASER, the company has its own redaction tool known as Axon Redaction Assistant. The tool has been mentioned to have the capability to detect up to 20 faces at a time. Besides faces, the tool can redact MDTs and license plates as well. The tool can also be used manually for added accuracy, is claimed to be constantly improving and can execute as a background task as well. It also exists as an add-on for Axon Evidence. 

Key Features of AXON Redaction Assistant: 

• Capable of redacting up to 20 faces simultaneously 
• Capable of redacting faces, license plates and MDT screens 
• Automatic and Manual Redaction 
• Background execution 
• Integration possible with AXON Evidence and other AXON products 

Caseguard Video Redaction Software

Caseguard’s product, Caseguard Video Redaction Software, is a standalone video redaction tool, that allows for redaction in both automatic and manual modes. To be more specific, redaction can be performed on a video in automatic mode with the power of AI, in a manual object tracking mode where the user specifies an object to be redacted, which is later tracked and redacted throughout the video. The last is simple manual redaction through masking with boxes, with no tracking of objects.  

Key Features of Caseguard Video Redaction Software: 

• Standalone video redaction tool 
• Supports redaction for video, audio, documents and imagery 
• Automatic and Manual Redaction 
• Automatic Bulk Redaction 
• Easy user-interface  
• Tracking of detected elements throughout the video 

Motorola Solutions REDACTIVE 

REDACTIVE by Motorola Solutions allows for automatic detection of faces, people, vehicles, license plates, and small objects and allows the user the liberty to manually choose which of these are to be redacted and which are not. The tool can also scan the entire video backward and forwards for any manually redacted element at any point of time in the video. The tool is also applicable for audio redaction.  

Key Features of Motorola Solution REDACTIVE: 

• Automatic and Manual Redaction 
• Able to detect faces, people, vehicles, license plates, and small objects 
• Tracking of detected elements back and forth in the video 
• Available for audio and video redaction 
• Platform independent software  

Genetec Clearance Redaction Tool 

Genetec Clearance comes with a built-in redaction tool that allows for redaction on-demand, with each upload being automatically scanned for facial detection. The tool then provides liberty to the user to choose which faces are meant to be redacted and add additional masks for redacting other elements in the video. Being a part of their Clearance digital evidence management system, a video can be redacted, reviewed, and directly added to a case from the tool itself. 

Key Features of Genetec Clearance Redaction Tool: 

• Redaction tool built-in with the evidence management system 
• Automatic face detection for redaction 
• Automatic and Manual redaction 
• Faces can be labeled  
• Object redaction based on custom masks 
• Easy-to-use interface 

SuspectTech Exact Redact 

SuspectTech (Suspect Technologies) have their own redaction tool named Exact Redact. The tool provides automatic and manual redaction of video and audio data. Using the tool, faces, people and cars can be automatically redacted whereas manual redaction can be used for audio and custom identifiable information. Their focus is on meeting the compliance needs as specified in CJIS.  

Key Features of SuspectTech Exact Redact: 

• Automatic Redaction of faces, cars and people 
• Manual redaction of objects 
• Audio redaction present through manual mode 
• Deployment options for Azure Government Cloud, on-premises and desktop application 

Conclusion 

If your organization is looking for video redaction software, then do try our redaction tool by signing up for a demo. 

VIDIZIMO’s proprietary video redaction tool is constantly improving with frequent new releases that add new features and improvements to it. The tool uses AI-based capabilities for automatic detection of faces, people, custom-defined objects such as license plates, addresses, symbols, and other elements in a video file.  

There are a few specific features that give VIDIZMO the edge over several other providers of redaction tools and services, such as those enlisted below: 

• The core element that differentiates VIDIZMO’s redaction tool from others is the ability to perform redaction through on-demand face detection upon uploading videos. Through a simple setting in the portal, this feature can be used for both EnterpriseTube and DEMS.  
• Another element that was found to be a rare feature amongst various providers of redaction software was the ability to redact automatically and manually a single file simultaneously. Most providers would allow only one of the operations in a single execution. The file would then have to be rerun for another execution to fully redact it. Fortunately, the case is not with VIDIZMO’s redaction tool. 
• VIDIZMO’s redaction tool provides results with accuracy. You will not see broken redaction for videos where the camera is not stationary or the objects in the line of sight to be redacted are moving frequently.  

Feel free to contact us for further info regarding any questions that you may have.

This blog article is part of our complete guide on redaction. Do check it out.