How to unredact an individual in a video for a DSAR / ROA or FOIA 

Step 1: Upload your video

Watch the video on how to upload a video.

If you have lots of videos on the go as opposed to just one, your video will be automatically added to the current job queue for processing for automatically adding redaction boxes.

When you’re in the app and want to upload another video, click the ‘+’ button in the bottom right-hand corner.

Step 2: Select the individual

Locate and select the individual you want to unredact - from now on, we’ll call him X. Click on the orange redaction box over their face in the video view.

This opens the Entity view for the individual in the Entity Panel on the right.

The Entity view shows the tracks that have been automatically associated with that person (or object). Each track is shown separately with its start and end frames listed (click these to jump to their respective frames).

Step 3: Assign an alias

Once you’ve clicked on the orange redaction box of the individual X, you need to assign an entity alias.

  1. Clicking X’s orange redaction box opens up the associated Entity on the right. You can see all the same tracks that are within this Entity, and see where they appear in the video scroll as well.

  2. The first thing to do is add an entity alias. In this instance, "Black shirt”.

    • “Black shirt” will appear in the video player tagged to any orange boxes (i.e. tracks) that are within this entity.

    • This way, you can easily follow any tracks within this entity, and quickly make edits where needed.

Once added, the alias name is displayed underneath the respective redaction boxes on the video - making it simple to review tracks for an individual. Providing an alias also makes it easier for you to find in the Entities Panel. 

Step 4: Review tracks for your individual, X’s Entity

All tracks in the Entity are represented on the video timeline in blue. You can see where each track starts and ends with the breaks in the timeline view.

This break shows that one track ends and another starts soon after - that may be because a subject disappears from the shot for a short period (due to occlusion, strange angles or leaving the scene).

You can quickly check that each track represents the correct individual by hovering your cursor over the corresponding blue track section of the timeline to scan frame freezes of what is being tracked.

If the track is correct then you can click straight to the end frame using the ‘End frame"‘ button in the entity panel, and then do the same with the next track and so on. Using the ‘End Frame’ links is a fast way of checking the gaps between tracks.

Step 5: Add tracks to your individual’s Entity

If you find a track related to X is NOT in the “Black shirt” entity, you can easily add it.

  1. Watch the video again from the start of when your individual first comes into frame.

  2. Any orange redaction boxes (i.e. tracks) associated with X should have the tagged alias “Black shirt”.

  3. If they do not, you can insert that track into the “Black shirt entity”.

  4. Pause the video when the associated track does not have the tagged “Black shirt” alias and right-click on the orange redaction box.

  5. Click “Insert into entity” and then click “Black shirt”.

  6. Repeat this until the individual goes out of frame for good.

  7. The “Black shirt” entity should now have all the associated tracks for X.

Step 6: Take tracks not associated with the subject out of X’s Entity

If you find tracks unrelated to X in their corresponding entity, you can easily take them out.

  1. Click on the orange redaction box of X in the video player.

  2. This opens up its associated entity (in our case, “Black shirt”) on the right. You can see all the tracks that are within this entity, and see at what times they appear in the video scroll as well.

  3. You may find that there are some tracks that are not associated with X in the “Black shirt” entity.

  4. To take these tracks out of the “Black shirt” entity, simply right-click on the particular track - either its orange box in the video player or the track in the entity view.

  5. From here, you can:

    • Move it to an entity that you have already given an alias to.

    • Move it to an entity that you have not given an alias to by clicking “More” and then choosing from all the entities you have.

    • Move it to a new entity by clicking “New”.

Step 7: Does the track follow the individual properly throughout its duration?

If a track starts with the right person/object but then switches to a different person/object midway through, it can be split and the incorrect portion then moved out of the Entity. 

  1. Navigate to the frame in the track where you want it to be split, right click the corresponding orange redaction box in the video player and select ‘split track’ from the track menu.

  2. This then splits the track at that frame - creating two tracks in the Entity view.

  3. Repeat step 6 to move the track out of the Entity.

Step 8: Unredact your individual and keep everyone else in the video redacted

Once you are happy that your individual, X’s, Entity has all their associated tracks, you can easily unredact the individual making them visible in the video, and keep everyone else blurred.

  1. By now, you should have made sure that the “Black shirt” Entity has all the associated tracks of X. This means that whenever X appears in the video, their orange redaction boxes will have the tag “Black shirt” to them in the video player.

  2. Click on one of the associated tracks of X in the video player to open up the “Black shirt” Entity view.

  3. From here you can:

    • Unredact entity = This means that the orange redaction boxes (tracks) will disappear from the video player, and in your final video, X will be visible. This step can be reversed to re-redact the individual - just click “redact entity”.

    • Delete entity = This will delete the “Black shirt” entity and all the associated tracks. Visually, X will be visible. But this step cannot be undone: if you wanted to go back and re-redact X, you’d have to add all the tracks again manually.

  4. You can also unredact entities in the Entities Panel, by un-ticking the thumbnail of the entity in question.

You can then preview what the final video will look like before downloading, using the settings button in the video player. You can also preview the video in high resolution, with the ability to zoom in and out of frames to check the legibility of smaller faces and objects.