Real-time Video Stream Filtering for Privacy Protection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing video conferencing technologies face challenges in providing enhanced privacy, as they often rely on post-processing solutions that require video streams to be stored and reprocessed, leading to privacy risks and inefficiencies in handling unknown or unanticipated sensitive objects.
Innovation Solution
Implementing user-controlled privacy settings by allowing users to define policies that identify approved objects and actions, such as blurring or replacing them with avatars, which are applied in real-time during video conferencing, ensuring only approved content is shared and stored.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If post-processing solutions are used to identify and remove sensitive objects from video streams, then sensitive objects can be removed from video conferences, but the video conference must be stored on a server first which creates privacy risks
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by having users define privacy policies and identify sensitive objects before the video conference is stored. The server processes and filters the video stream in advance, removing or obscuring sensitive objects identified by user policies, so that when the video is stored, the sensitive information has already been eliminated. This resolves the contradiction by ensuring sensitive object removal effectiveness while avoiding the privacy risk of storing unfiltered video.
2Adaptability or versatility
If blacklisting methodology is used to remove identified objects from video conference, then known sensitive objects can be excluded, but unknown or unanticipated sensitive objects cannot be protected
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements universality by creating a multi-functional policy management framework that combines multiple protection approaches: blacklisting for known sensitive objects, whitelisting for approved objects, and automated sensitivity detection for unknown objects. This unified system allows users to define comprehensive policies that adapt to various scenarios, protecting both known and unknown sensitive objects while managing complexity through a single integrated interface.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If real-time filtering is implemented to control video streams, then user privacy is enhanced by excluding unauthorized objects, but processing time and computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies preliminary action by pre-processing video streams in real-time during the conference call, filtering and removing unauthorized objects before storage occurs. User-defined policies are applied immediately to the live video feed, identifying and excluding sensitive objects as they appear, thus enhancing privacy protection while minimizing delay through efficient real-time processing rather than post-conference processing.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods are provided herein for only including portions of a user's environment that have been approved by a user in a video conference while excluding portions that have not been approved. This may be accomplished by a device receiving a policy identifying one or more approved objects of a scene of a video stream. The device may then generate a filtered video stream by only including portions of the scene that comprise the one or more objects that were approved by the policy in the filtered video stream. The filtered video stream may be combined with other video streams to generate a video conference that is transmitted and/or stored by one or more devices participating in the video conference.