Abstract
Surveillance video recording is a powerful method of deterring unlawful activities. A robust data protection-by-design solution can be helpful in terms of making a captured video immutable, as such recordings cannot become a piece of evidence until proven to be unaltered. Similarly, video sharing from closed-circuit television video recording or in social media interaction requires self-authentication for responsible and reliable data sharing. This article presents a computationally inexpensive method of preserving a chain-of-evidence in surveillance videos by means of hashing and steganography. The method conforms to the data protection regulations, which are increasingly adopted by governments, and is applicable to network edge storage. Encryption keys are stored in a hardware wallet independently of the video capture device itself, while evidential information is stored steganographically within video frames themselves, independently of the content. Added protection is provided by hiding information within the two least-valued of pixel bitplanes, using a newly introduced technique that randomizes the pixel storage locations on a per video frame and video-capture device basis. Overall, the proposed method has turned out to not only preserve the integrity of stored video data but also results in minimal degradation of the video data resulting from steganography. Despite the inclusion of hidden information, video frames will still be available for common image-processing tasks such as tracking and classification, as their objective video quality is almost unchanged.
Highlights
It is no longer the case that only special places, such as international airports, are kept under surveillance for security and safety purposes
The Output Feedback (OFB) mode avoids the overhead of padding and, if Universal Serial Bus (USB) storage errors occur, these are not necessarily propagated, allowing partial stream recovery. (See earlier comments on OFB mode in Section III-E.) The key size was 128 bits rather than 256 bits, in order to reduce the computational overhead
Each rotated I component of the image stores one block of data and an RGB image is reconstructed from the HSI image
Summary
It is no longer the case that only special places, such as international airports, are kept under surveillance for security and safety purposes. In [7], a chain-of-evidence is kept for forensics purposes but a blockchain is employed to store hashes of information gathered, which may add to the complexity of the method. It will be shown that the generation of randomized locations for information concealment may be performed in two additional ways This can be firstly through identification information from the capturing device (e.g. the Medium Access Control (MAC) address of the camera) and secondly through the video frame information, as mentioned above. The proposed method makes it easier to maintain, synchronize, and prevent loss of evidence Such a chain-of-evidence is desirable in the case of surveillance videos but could be useful in ascertaining the originality and authenticity of videos uploaded to social-media sites.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
