Video Stream Filtering for Real-Time Privacy Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing video conferencing technologies struggle to provide enhanced privacy by effectively excluding unapproved objects from video streams, particularly when unexpected individuals or objects appear, leading to potential privacy breaches.
Innovation Solution
A user device generates a filtered video stream based on user-defined policies, identifying and excluding unapproved objects while including approved ones, and optionally replacing them with virtual backgrounds or avatars, with the option to update policies during the conference.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If post-processing solutions are used to remove sensitive objects from video streams, then privacy protection is improved, but the video conference must be stored on a server first which creates privacy risks and storage requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs object identification and filtering actions before the video stream is stored or transmitted. By detecting sensitive objects and applying filters in advance (during the capture and encoding phase), the system avoids the need to store unfiltered video content on servers, thereby eliminating the privacy risk associated with server storage while maintaining the ability to protect sensitive information.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If blacklisting methods are used to remove identified objects, then known sensitive objects can be removed, but unknown or unanticipated objects cannot be filtered out effectively
Solution Approach 1:
The system employs automated object detection and classification algorithms that continuously monitor the video stream to identify sensitive objects without requiring manual blacklisting. The system self-adjusts by learning from the environment and automatically filtering unknown sensitive objects based on their visual characteristics and context, eliminating the need for pre-defined blacklists while maintaining comprehensive privacy protection.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If real-time filtering is implemented to exclude unapproved objects, then privacy control is improved, but processing time and computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The filtering process is divided into multiple stages: initial rapid object detection using lightweight algorithms, followed by selective detailed analysis only for potential sensitive objects. This segmentation allows the system to quickly identify and filter common sensitive objects with minimal processing delay, while reserving computational resources for more complex analysis only when necessary, thereby maintaining real-time performance.
4Ease of operation
If user-defined policies are implemented for object selection, then user privacy control is improved, but the system complexity and policy management overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system provides pre-defined template policies that copy successful filtering configurations for common scenarios (e.g., filtering children, vehicles, or specific objects). Users can select and adapt these templates rather than creating policies from scratch, significantly reducing the complexity of policy management while maintaining strong privacy control. The system automatically adjusts the template to fit the current video context, eliminating the need for users to manage complex policy rules manually.
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.