German firm Vector has developed software that makes people and vehicle licence plates unrecognisable when recording video and image data.

In development projects for driver assistance systems and autonomous driving, large amounts of video and image data are recorded in public spaces. The vAnonymize software makes it easier for users to anonymise the recorded data to ensure compliance with privacy regulations.

Video recordings play an important role in any development project for driver assistance systems and autonomous driving. The cameras record large amounts of video and image data in public spaces. In the European Union and the USA, the recording of personal data in public spaces is regulated by law. The data must be anonymised as quickly as technically possible.

The vAnonymize software was developed for this use case. Using artificial intelligence, faces and vehicle licence plates are detected and subsequently anonymised.

After capturing images and videos with any recording system, the data are stored on a local storage or server. Anonymisation of the recorded data by vAnonymize can be executed on servers as well as high-performance computers. Due to parallel processing on multiple CPUs and GPUs, a very high data throughput is achieved.

No internet connection is required, and no sensitive data are passed on to third parties. By using vAnonymize on existing server infrastructure, costs, time and administrative effort can be reduced.

Vector is a manufacturer of software tools and embedded components for the development of electronic systems and their networking with many different systems from Can to Automotive Ethernet. It has been a partner of automotive manufacturers and suppliers and related industries since 1988.

Vector worldwide employs more than 3500 people with sales of €1.06bn in 2022. The company is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, and has subsidiaries in Austria, Brazil, China, France, Great Britain, India, Italy, Japan, Romania, Sweden, South Korea, Spain and the USA.