October 30, 2024

Faster, smarter redaction: Axon launches a revamped tool to tackle digital evidence demands

Redaction has become increasingly crucial due to the rise in digital evidence and the subsequent surge in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and public records requests. All requested digital evidence must be redacted to protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Consequently, many agencies are overwhelmed by growing backlogs of evidence needing redaction, which strains resources, delays responses, and erodes community trust.

First introduced in 2019, Axon’s AI-powered tool known as Redaction Assistant was developed to help agencies improve their redaction workflows. However, in recent years, significant advancements in AI have provided an opportunity to upgrade our redaction tools and capabilities. Working alongside our customers, we identified the most time-consuming and repetitive steps in the redaction process and sought to streamline them.

As a result of this effort, total redaction time is now reduced by up to 70%. This significant time savings is a result of enhancements to both Redaction Studio and Redaction Assistant, and focusing specifically on more accurate AI models, faster processing times, and key workflows that make the most time consuming redaction tasks more efficient.

Get a deep-dive of Axon's redaction suite of tools

Join us for a live webinar November 20, 2024.

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New Features in Redaction Studio

The redaction process begins in Axon’s Redaction Studio. Part of Axon Evidence, permitted users can open any piece of video evidence they have access to and instantly leverage Axon’s intuitive tools to manually redact audio and video. Several new features have been added to Redaction Studio to further enhance the redaction process:

  • Redacted objects panel - View redacted objects, assign redacted objects exemption codes, and jump to where objects were redacted in video, all from one panel

  • Inverted masks - Manually select the portion of the video that can remain visible, then easily apply a mask to the rest of the frame

  • Undo/redo functionality - Undo or redo the application of a mask

  • Exemption log - Create an agency-specific dropdown of exemption codes for fast application, then download the exemption logs along with extracted files from Axon Evidence

  • Audio stream selection - Select, view and listen to a specific audio stream in video files that contain multiple audio streams

Revamped Reaction Assistant

Redaction Assistant is a paid AI-enabled add-on available within Redaction Studio. The latest enhancements to Redaction Assistant center on increased accuracy, faster processing times, and a more intuitive user experience. A few notable changes include:

  • Improved masking accuracy - Upgraded AI models trained specifically for law enforcement purposes more accurately detect heads, screens and license plates

  • Faster processing - Videos up to 2 hours long now return AI results within 10 minutes

  • Bulk selection - Initiate the AI models on up to 20 pieces of video evidence simultaneously

  • Head detection and selection - All unique heads are identified and followed throughout the video, even as they move in and out of frame; quickly select which to redact via a new thumbnail panel

Transform Your Redaction Process

All Axon redaction tools provide users with an audit trail, ensuring accountability and transparency in public record management. And because these tools are accessed directly within Axon Evidence, there is a secure chain of custody and all sensitive data stays secure within the Axon Ecosystem.

Working directly within Axon Evidence provides additional benefits in that no on-premise hardware is required and any number of users can be redacting simultaneously. Further, no time is lost downloading or uploading files to another tool, maximizing efficiency for law enforcement agencies.

Just as public safety is continuously evolving, the Axon Ecosystem is ever growing and evolving as well. The updates to Redaction Studio and Redaction Assistant exemplify Axon’s commitment to providing agencies with truly best in class technology solutions.

For more information on the improvements to Axon’s redaction tools, join the Axon team for a webinar on November 20.

Register for the webinar

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