CES 2021: BrainCreators and Advantech launch ARA, a digital inspector for automated anonymization

ARA continuously monitors footage from video surveillance camera systems. The system detects people by faces, postures and environmental objects without identifying individuals in the images. In addition, specialist algorithms have been added to detect motion and prevent flickering of the camera images. Since ARA processes every frame, each individual pictured can be anonymized with a mask of your choice, such as facial blurring or full body masking. This excludes any form of identification or profiling and is fully compliant with privacy regulations. Once anonymized the footage can be used for further processing, without privacy issues.

The first customer to use the ARA system is Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Schiphol Airport will install the system within its video surveillance network throughout the airport. Schiphol is currently looking into how digital inspectors can be rolled out further to increase efficiency at a lower cost. The anonymized footage can be used to reduce the number of inspection rounds that human maintenance inspectors must undertake. This allows for better crowd, queue and risk management. Schiphol will also be able to use anonymized footage to recognize suspicious behavior, enabling police and security personnel to prevent incidents from occurring. This allows Schiphol and its main contractors to manage the maintenance of assets more efficiently, save on cost and mitigate risks.

Raymond Kossen, Product Manager at Schiphol Group said "Thanks to ARA, we can gain added value from our surveillance images. This includes counting people, traffic flows, human behavior, public safety, automated visual inspections and checking the integrity of assets. This will enable us to make our airport safer and more efficient while meeting legal requirements."

Jash Bansidhar, Managing Director of Advantech Europe said "ARA is the first ‚Edge Solution Ready Package‘ that we have developed in collaboration with BrainCreators. The intelligent inspector based on AI consists of a combination of BrainMatter software optimized on our edge computing technology. Sensitive information from camera images can now be found and made anonymous."

"Innovation accelerates when privacy concerns are taken out of the picture," said Glenn Brouwer, co-founder and CRO of BrainCreators. "Thanks to our BrainMatter platform, ARA can identify and anonymize faces, postures and environmental objects. Advantech’s edge technology ensures that ARA’s automation model can be executed onsite within the secure video surveillance network. Moreover, the video streams can be encrypted and anonymized directly at the device."

About BrainCreators

BrainCreators builds intelligent digital inspectors on their BrainMatter platform to automatically perform repetitive tasks, enabling companies to scale more effectively and cost efficiently. The company was founded in 2016 by three entrepreneurs who studied Artificial Intelligence together at the University of Amsterdam. More information about BrainCreators and its solutions can be found via: www.braincreators.com, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook