APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PROTECTING PRIVACY INFORMATION OF SURVEILLANCE IMAGE

• US 20110085035A1
• Filed: 11/20/2009
• Published: 04/14/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/09/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: KIM, Geonwoo, JU, Hong Il, JEON, Yong-Sung, HAN, Jong-Wook, CHO, Hyun sook, KIM, Moo Seop, CHOI, SuGil, HAN, Jin Hee, KIM, Young Sae
• Application Number:
  US12/622,681
• Publication Number:
  US 20110085035A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/143
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/448 Rendering the image unintelligible, e.g. scrambling
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/159 Prediction type, e.g. intra-frame, inter-frame or bidirectional frame prediction
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/17 the unit being an image region, e.g. an object
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/40 using video transcoding, i.e. partial or full decoding of a coded input stream followed by re-encoding of the decoded output stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/51 Motion estimation or motion compensation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/18 Closed-circuit television [CCTV] systems, i.e. systems in which the video signal is not broadcast

Abstract

An apparatus for protecting privacy information of a surveillance image includes a key management unit for generating and managing keys used to unmask a masked input image; an input image processing unit for unmasking the input image using the keys, decoding the unmasked input image to acquire an uncompressed image data, and then applying a second masking on an area containing privacy information of the image data. Further, the apparatus for protecting the privacy information of the surveillance image includes an image recording unit for encoding the image data to which the second masking has been applied to store the encoded image data.

Claims

1. An apparatus for protecting privacy information of a surveillance image, comprising:

a key management unit for generating and managing keys used to unmask a masked input image;

an input image processing unit for unmasking the input image using the keys, decoding the unmasked input image to acquire an uncompressed image data, and then applying a second masking on an area containing privacy information of the image data; and

an image recording unit for encoding the image data to which the second masking has been applied to store the encoded image data.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the key management unit includes:

a key storage unit for storing a primary key used to unmask the input image and secondary keys derived from the primary key; and

a key generation unit for generating a different secondary key derived from the secondary key for each frame of the input image when unmasking the input image to provide the different secondary key.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the key generation unit generates a different secondary key from the secondary key for each frame of the input image by using a hash function.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the input image processing unit includes:

a masked image restoration unit for unmasking the masked input image using the keys and decoding the unmasked input image to restore the uncompressed image data;

a masking area information processing unit for detecting the area containing the privacy information of the image data to reconfigure the area containing the privacy information as a second masking area; and

a masking processing unit for performing masking on the reconfigured second masking area of the image data.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the masked image restoration unit receives the masked input image and loads image information to a memory in units of frames, and extracts information of a masking area from the loaded image information.

6. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the masking area information processing unit acquires information of the second masking area defined in macroblocks containing privacy information, from the image data, calculates the width, height, and central coordinates of the second masking area to determine the shape of the second masking area as a circle or ellipse, and then calculates the coordinates of pixels present inside the circle or ellipse to reconfigure the second masking area.

7. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the masking processing unit performs masking by image processing for changing the color of each pixel present in the second masking area into a given color.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the image recording unit includes:

an image encoding unit for encoding the image data to which the second masking is applied; and

an image storage unit for storing the encoded image data.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein, after acquiring the image data to which the second masking is applied, the image encoding unit determines the encoding method of the input image, and if the encoding method of the input image is an intra prediction method, the image encoding unit performs encoding on all the macroblocks before the second masking area of the image data by duplicating the encoding result values of the input image as it is, and performs encoding on all the macroblocks after the second masking area by reusing an intra prediction mode included in the input image.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein, if the encoding method of the input image is an interprediction method, the image encoding unit performs encoding on the macroblocks not referring to the second masking area, among the macroblocks before the second masking area of the image data by duplicating the encoding result values of the input image as it is, and performs encoding on the macroblocks after the second masking area by reusing the motion vector included in the input image.

11. A method for protecting privacy information, comprising:

acquiring information of a masking area from an input image;

unmasking the masked area of the input image using the information of the masking area;

acquiring an uncompressed image data by decoding the unmasked input image;

reconfiguring a second masking area containing privacy information of the image data; and

performing masking on an image of the second masking area.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein said unmasking the masked area unmasks the masked image by generating the same keys as keys used when masking the input image.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the keys are classified into a primary key and secondary keys derived from the primary key, and the input image is unmasked by using the secondary keys.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein a different secondary key is generated from the secondary key for each frame of the input image and used for the unmasking.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the different secondary key is generated from the secondary key using a hash function.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein said reconfiguring the second masking area includes:

acquiring information of the second masking area defined in macroblocks containing privacy information, from the image data;

calculating the width, height, and central coordinates of the second masking area to determine the shape of the second masking area as a circle or ellipse based on the acquired information; and

calculating the coordinates of pixels present inside the circle or ellipse.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein said applying masking performs masking by image processing for changing the color of each pixel in the second masking area into a given color.

18. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

encoding the image data to which the second masking is performed; and

storing the encoded image data.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein said encoding the image data includes:

acquiring image data to which the second masking is performed;

determining the encoding method of the input image;

if the determined encoding method of the input image is an intra prediction method, performing encoding on all the macroblocks before the second masking area of the image data by duplicating the encoding result values of the input image as it is; and

performing encoding on all the macroblocks after the second masking area by reusing an intra prediction mode included in the input image.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein said encoding the image data further includes:

if the determined encoding method of the input image is an inter prediction method, performing encoding on the macroblocks not referring to the second masking area, among the macroblocks before the second masking area of the image data by duplicating the encoding result values of the input image as it is; and

performing encoding on the macroblocks after the second masking area by reusing the motion vector included in the input image.