Privacy masking

Your system administrator can blur or cover areas in a camera’s field of view to protect private or public areas, such as windows of a private residence. In XProtect Smart Client, the privacy masks are applied in live, playback, and exports.

Privacy masks can be permanent or liftable. Permanent privacy masks have full solid coverage by default, while liftable masks have 50% blurring. Your system administrator defines if any of the types of privacy masks appear on your camera.

The following image shows five windows in an adjacent building covered by permanent privacy masks:

Privacy masking applied to the windows of a private residence in video feed.

If your system administrator has defined privacy masks as liftable and you have the right user permissions, you can temporarily lift all privacy masks in XProtect Smart Client.

In this example, there are two types of privacy masks: the solid gray area is a permanent privacy mask and the blurred area is a liftable privacy mask.

Blurred are and grayed-out area in video feed.

When you export video, you can add more privacy masks to the exported video.

See also Add privacy masks to recordings during export.