Top 3 Video Security and Privacy Trends for 2021

Written By Emma Bruce
Video Surveillance Edge Analytics

There are now 4.4 billion of us online everyday. Access to always on services has driven a host of new behaviours and expectations around the way we carry out our personal and business lives, and has affected the way we share and manage personal data. This explosion in the adoption of online services, from social networks to banking and health, has resulted in a situation where most people’s personal and sensitive data is spread across a range of service providers, mostly out of their control. The focus on rapid growth with many internet companies is now being tempered with wider considerations for how they are handling and managing personal data and their responsibilities for safeguarding their users from all forms of harmful content, especially with regards to children’s use of online platforms.

The privacy concerns surrounding how companies are managing personal and other sensitive data are now being managed in parallel with the security of the same data. There has been a rapid increase in the volume and severity of cyber attacks (with a cyber attack expected to occur every 11 seconds in 2021, according to Cyber Security Ventures) with all businesses needing to manage data privacy and security in tandem to avoid hefty fines from non compliance, to build and maintain trust with their employees, customers and suppliers, and to ultimately keep operating.  

To operate a successful business in 2021 requires additional priorities that are geared towards protecting the security of valuable business assets, managing reputation/trust and ultimately, processes for how they treat their customer and employee data. In order to provide and maintain data protection and security businesses are increasingly turning to monitoring systems to track their internal and external environments. Video surveillance has become a more accepted, “helping hand” to business security, with three major trends that are shaping its development in 2021.

GDPR employee training

1. Data Privacy alongside Security

75% of organisations around the world are reported to have experienced a phishing attack in 2020, with over 20 billion customer records leaked. There is now a growing appreciation across the business community of the growing scale of threat from cyber attacks, with the associated requirements for safeguarding business IP, employees, customers and suppliers. 

For many businesses, a significant approach to security monitoring has been through video surveillance, which has seen a rapid growth in deployment even in the context of an increasingly regulated operating environment for data privacy practices. Video surveillance systems have become important for monitoring physical environments to protect people and data. 

Live video surveillance allows ongoing risk management for operations whilst ensuring staff and visitor welfare. These systems are now being used to monitor and help enforce the wearing of face masks and social distancing, measuring building occupancy and supplying other data intelligence to facilities and operations managers. 

Alongside direct surveillance, video is increasingly driving the delivery and optimisation of virtual services online -  from telehealth and observational studies, continuous temperature screening in retail and manufacturing through to biometric access controls using facial recognition - there are a host of measures that are high up the priority list of business. This drive to safety and security has brought with it a growing and critical need for the responsible and compliant management and use of the resulting data that is being processed. Businesses are now paying more attention to their data handling practices, with security and privacy concerns coming closer together as parallel requirements. Employees are now going through educational programs to raise their awareness of both areas, and how it impacts the way they go about their daily tasks; how they go about data logging, usage, storage and deletion. Businesses who are processing and storing large scale sensitive data are now using data minimisation strategies including anonymising large amounts of personal information they are storing so it can be used, shared and analysed more widely. 

With human error being a regular weak link in a breach, and as many are working remotely, education is an easy way to make sure everyone knows how to safeguard business and personal data. 

AI security solutions

2. The Burgeoning of AI

The collecting of video and other data from CCTV footage, smartphones, body worn cameras and digital platforms is now an accepted practice in most businesses. But what actually happens to it? 

Businesses understandably want to use it - for marketing, sales prospecting, making product improvements, facilities management and operational analytics - it’s commercially valuable data to the business that contains personal and sensitive data from individuals. Increasingly it needs securing as an asset for the company, whilst protecting the privacy of those whose data it includes. With the growth in AI services (for video and other data types) the value from data is growing as more of it can be processed more quickly and more accurately, to deliver timely insights and alerts to the business, whilst the solutions for adding security and AI based privacy enhancing tools around it are growing alongside.

Remote monitoring through video has seen a growth over the pandemic period, as premises have switched to zero contact solutions in order to minimise physical contact risks; driving adoption of more surveillance systems which are generating even more data that needs to be kept safe and managed. 

AI systems provide a simple solution to facilitate the switch from manual to automated systems. Video systems with AI capability can now automatically send alerts to an operator when something seems out of place in a scene. The operator can then access the live feed remotely in order to assess the situation and determine the next steps. 

A study conducted by Deloitte in July 2020 showed that the top uses for AI include predictive analytics (38%) and cybersecurity (41%), with this steadily increasing as we continue into 2021. For more and more businesses, AI solutions are a win-win when it comes to security because they cut out unnecessary manual and physical contact by providing automated and accurate monitoring; and they reduce energy, bandwidth and cost. 

Unfortunately, these cutting edge security solutions are also accessible to cybercriminals, who both sell effective infiltration methods to others, and continue to create better adversarial methods (deep fakes for example) that can be used to subvert these methods. This is an on-going area of AI development and focus and will continue to be a driving force into 2021 and beyond. 

Cloud solutions

3. Cloud Backup and Deployments

With many businesses trying to recover from financial losses made during the 2020 pandemic, it’s putting more pressure on growth and costs which has the potential to push wider data security and privacy concerns into the future. The cloud is now offering a cost effective and simple solution to back-up and recovery for many companies including remote access and monitoring, out of the box strong encryption, advanced security control and fast deployment across geographic regions to maintain data sharing agreements across borders.

Hybrid remote and offline access gives strong stability in the case of a breach, and encrypted backup systems, such as AWS and Azure Stack Edge, allow for edge-computing deployments across numerous integration points, while simultaneously providing a secure and protective infrastructure. 

The growth of the public cloud infrastructure is predicted to increase by 35% for 2021, and hybrid cloud solutions are becoming more and more popular as forms of security and business continuity provisions. 

The leading cloud service providers are set up to deliver the components needed to build and deploy a regulatory compliant service. They offer flexible architecture control, cost predictability and scalability vs managing local servers. Their scalability and compatibility with AI also means they can easily mould to suit small, medium and large enterprises, seen through the growing demand for cloud based SaaS deployment models across multiple-sized businesses. 

Furthermore, they are a simple way to establish and grow trust between customers, businesses and employees. The uncertainty of stable security has permeated all industries during the pandemic, but the strong security of all personal and sensitive data that leading cloud solutions can provide (and back up), supports a transparent approach to a business’s data handling, and benefits all those involved.

Privacy and security considerations are rising up the board agenda quickly; cyber threats, data compliance and reputation are all playing a critical role in the ability of businesses to operate successfully into the future. All of this is happening in the context of a global pandemic, which is increasing the adoption of surveillance technologies and personal data capture for health and wellbeing alongside the remote monitoring of physical locations. This data is becoming easier to process at scale and more valuable to organisations as a result of maturing AI systems and platforms.

It’s a critical time for business to review its approach to data security and privacy, especially related to the growth in security video capture and usage, which is densely packed with personal and sensitive data. 

Irrefutable damage to business reputation and loss of assets / sensitive data, paired with the pressures to provide new data driven services, is the driving force for many tech businesses review their privacy and security risks. The solutions that AI, multiple cloud integrations, and a secure digital infrastructure provide mean that many companies can have a cost-effective, covid-friendly and automatic approach, so it is not surprising that they are predicted to shape the security trends of 2021.

Emma Bruce
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