We provide professional redaction services
A secure solution for your redaction needs
Focal Forensics
Focal Forensics is a CJIS compliant provider of comprehensive redaction services that your team can leverage to process requests your department receives for any form of digital media evidence.
Our team of media forensic professionals are trained in processing video evidence and take great pride in handling sensitive digital evidence.
Our secure solution can help free up valuable time and resources.
Industry Trusted
Focal Forensic customers include all levels of government, healthcare providers, legal service providers, retailers, casinos, transportation providers, and many more. Come see how our CJIS compliant redaction services have saved our clients from missing release deadlines and spending money on a product that fails to meet their needs.
A budget friendly way to redact with confidence and 100% accuracy
The Focal Redaction Process
Our redaction process has been designed with an emphasis on security protocols and requirements that align with the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) guidelines established by the Department of Justice. At Focal Forensics, we are dedicated to delivering a secure and robust solution to meet the particular redaction needs of your department. We use a secure and encrypted file transfer platform that ensures that video evidence can be swiftly and securely transmitted and received. Additionally, our services can seamlessly integrate with your department's existing digital evidence management system.
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Data is sent from agency to Focal Forensics
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Data is received and securely stored off line
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Data is reviewed to meet agency requirements
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Data is redacted as approved by the agency
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Final data review and quality control process
QA APPROVED
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Data is sent securely back to agency
Redaction Services We Offer
Looking for redaction as a service?
Make the switch from software to a service.
Video Redaction can be an extremely complex task that should be left to trained professionals. Let Focal Forensics handle your requests and eliminate the headache of doing the work in-house. Enjoy the freedom to focus on the important tasks at hand while your media is being processed by a team of experts. We do the work while saving you valuable time and money.
11 Common Issues SurroundingVideo Redaction
In-house Software Vs. Focal Forensics
In-House Software
Focal Forensics
Cost Effective
In-House Software
Software companies often have complicated pricing models that charge the user based on the initial amount of media uploaded to their proprietary application suite. They also require a subscription fee for access to their redaction program. This results in the user paying for software they may not utilize frequently. Departments need to consider both the cost of the software itself and the training of additional labor required to process the redaction. It can lead to an inefficient allocation of departmental resources and result in additional overhead costs.
- Poor use of department resources
- Additional overhead cost
- Training costs
Focal Forensics
Our transparent pricing structure provide clarity on the total cost for each case requiring redaction. Our rates are designed with the constraints of departmental budgets in mind. You’ll only pay for what you need, and always know how much it costs, which allows you to have more flexibility with the budget as requests come in. Consider our services as an extension of your department’s capabilities, without incurring any upfront costs or requiring additional resources.
- No upfront costs
- No additional resources needed
- Use when needed
Redaction Speed
In-House Software
No automatic redaction software is perfect. While some software companies profess a one-button solution, they fail to generate accurate redactions even for typical policing incidents.Staff in your department will still be required to double check software output and will always be required to remove unnecessary redactions as well as redactions that are not accurate. Even with a dedicated redaction staff member, many inaccurate and unnecessary redactions created by software will need to be corrected.
- Fixing software inaccuracies
- Slow to completion and proficiency
- Implement QA process
Focal Forensics
Our team at Focal Forensics understands the need for releasing FOIA requests in a timely manner. When a department struggles to release videos quickly, they could be seen as lacking transparency or hiding information. Instead, use our robust redaction team to meet all specific mandated release schedules and retain peace of mind knowing the work is being performed by experts.
- Robust redaction team and solutions
- Prioritize a departments urgency
- Meet all mandated release times
- Timely completion with 100% accuracy
100% Accuracy
In-House Software
Extremely high accuracy is the most important element in releasing BWC footage. No software can be trusted to produce redaction that is 100% accurate. Software can fail to automatically recognize the complex movement in a policing incident or catch the nuances within a video, such as medical information, or ID cards. A small mistake on a single frame can expose the identity of an individual. Due to the extremely limited margin of error, the human eye is needed to accurately process an incident frame by frame.
- No QA assurance
- Unnecessary redactions
Focal Forensics
Our redaction services allow a department to leverage our trained professionals to ensure their redaction is 100% accurate. We follow strict guidelines from the department and work with your records division to guarantee 100% accurate redaction. We also use a quality assurance process to review all work before each release. This extra step provides additional confidence that all necessary redactions have been made and any initial mistakes have been corrected.
- Rigorous QA
- Trained professional
- Department-focused
Additional Training
In-House Software
When a customer purchase redaction software, their department must shift key personnel responsibilities to ensure the redaction is processed correctly. These individuals will need to be trained on the redaction software and can quickly become overworked when complex cases arise. Most redaction software is not user friendly and can take many hours to acquire a proficient level of redaction skills
- Additional responsibility
- Overworked personnel
Focal Forensics
Using a service provider completely eliminates the need for all technical video training. We provide each department with experts who have thousands of hours of hands-on experience and training. We focus on creating a unique workflow for each department which creates confidence that the release of footage is accurate, secure and most importantly fast.
- Professionally Trained
- Department-Focused personnel
Additional Staffing
In-House Software
Departments will need to pass on the redaction responsibilities to a current staff member or hire additional staff to ensure the requests coming in can be completed. Hiring additional staff is time consuming, expensive, and will require funds that may not be available. These resources can be spent in other areas that would improve its overarching goal of helping the community they serve.
- Costly professional salary
- Additional budgeting
- Costly/timely training
Focal Forensics
Our Goal is to limit the burden of redaction for departments by being an extension of each department we work with. Our services have been shown to eliminate unnecessary staffing requirements needed for redaction. By removing the staffing concerns, the department can utilize its current staff and resources more efficiently.
- Cost effective secure department extension
- CJIS compliant
Flexible Contract
In-House Software
Many software solutions often have strict pricing structures that don’t meet a department's budget or specific needs. Software solutions require contracts for large amounts of video that many departments often never use.
- Unused Resources
- High upfront costs
Focal Forensics
Focal Forensics offers an affordable redaction solution for departments looking to only pay for what they need. We provide a premium redaction service on a pay-as-you-go pricing model to accommodate the budget of your department. No long-term contracts or commitments.
- No upfront costs
- No additional fees
- Easily budgeted
Customer Support
In-House Software
Software solutions are extremely limited in their technical and customer support. They fail to focus their support to specific department needs or concerns. Many cloud-based solutions may even have downtime along with limitations for specific department user preferences.
- Slow to respond
- Not department-focused
- Not available 24/7
Focal Forensics
Focal Forensics builds its redaction services around each individual department with the understanding that each department is unique. We understand video-management systems are unique and all BWC programs are not the same. We strive to adapt to each department to integrate our services and create a long and lasting relationship with the least amount of change many departments would experience with other solutions.
- 24/7 care
- Department-focused
- Adapts to department infrastructure and key BWC SOPs
CJIS Compliant
In-House Software
Additional software revolving around the current evidence management platform will require care to follow CJIS guidelines. Additional SOPs will be needed to ensure the department is following all CJIS guidelines.
- Require additional process
- Difficult integration
Focal Forensics
Focal Forensics takes security protocols very seriously. We work closely with each department to provide confidence and peace of mind when using our services. All media evidence shared with Focal Forensics is protected by DLP solutions and encrypted security protocols. We remain informed about current and upcoming legislation to ensure our redaction process is following the specific requirements of each state.
- CJIS compliant data transfer
- Seamless department integration
- SWDGE best practices
We Analyzed 10,000 Hours of BWC Video
Here's what we learned about video redaction
Be one of the fastest departments to release footage
Our clients serve as a model for other departments and are often asked how they release footage with such speed and ease. At Focal Forensics, we understand the burden of meeting release mandates and have a robust redaction team that enables us to redact your media faster than any other software or service provider.
Hear
from our customers
Most common
Frequently Asked Questions
Departments of all sizes can benefit from using redaction services. These are some of the main benefits we see from departments that have used in-house software and have switched to a robust redaction service.
Ease of use
Faster turnaround time to release
100% accuracy
Department-focused redaction professionals
No additional overhead
Our services are priced based on the length of the footage or amount of media in need of redaction.
We understand that some departments may have a sizable backlog of media to be redacted and have priced our services with each department’s budget in mind.
No. Other services are charging customers for software or service even when they aren't used. With Focal Forensics you only pay for what you need.
Not with us. Redaction software companies require your department to expand and train staff to handle the demand of redaction.
Speed and accuracy are the most important aspects of redaction. We focus on providing a service that makes a department look like the ideal department that others want to model their media and evidence programs after. All our customers meet their state-mandated release times and are considered transparent with their BWC programs. We assess turnaround on a case-by-case basis but are always able to help departments reliably meet release deadlines as mandated by their state or county.
We use industry-standard encryption and DLP solutions for all endpoints. Focal Forensics is CJIS compliant and implements all best practices to ensure the secure transfer of media between your department and our redaction professionals.
We take great care to follow all CJIS guidelines to secure media from all endpoints. We can seamlessly integrate our services with your current digital evidence
management infrastructure. Our process eliminates risk and increases confidence that your media is secure. All media is protected with high-level encryption and DLP solutions for data both at rest and in transit.
In-house software is not only very expensive, but also incredibly unreliable; software alone is simply incapable of processing media to achieve 100% accurate redaction. Footage must be carefully reviewed frame-by-frame to ensure no private information is released. Using in-house software requires allocating staff and training them to carry out this meticulous task. Let our redaction experts handle this work for you.
Other service providers are not familiar with the complexity and individual needs of departments. We have strong relationships with large and small departments and have extensive experience with all evidence management infrastructure used today. Other services are not focused on being an extension of your department but rather focused on obtaining your business.
We pride ourselves on our values being aligned with those of the departments we serve and are passionate about the work we do to serve law enforcement.
