If someone else can watch your cameras, they're not really yours.

Why Encrypted Security Camera Storage Matters

Most security camera companies position themselves as privacy advocates while operating architectures that fundamentally compromise your privacy. They encrypt data in transit—while traveling from your camera to their servers—then decrypt it for storage so they can provide useful features.

This is surveillance dressed as service.

When companies give employees access to your footage, they create opportunity for abuse. What they can view, they sometimes do—for quality assurance, AI training, service improvement, or simple curiosity. Ring paid $5.8 million to settle FTC charges after employees were caught viewing customer cameras without consent. These aren't isolated incidents—they're the predictable result of architectures that enable access.

scOS operates differently: our infrastructure actively prevents staff access. Live video streams connect directly between your app and Intelligence Hub via WebRTC—scOS servers never see unencrypted streams. Recorded footage uses AWS KMS encryption, and IAM policies explicitly deny all scOS staff access to video playback APIs. This isn't a policy promise—it's an infrastructure reality.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Cloud Security Camera Companies

Every major cloud security camera company has access to your footage. They have to—their architecture requires it.

They analyze your footage for AI training. Those person detection features? Trained on footage from customers who thought they were buying private video storage. Your children playing in the garden. Your spouse working from home. Your elderly parents moving through the house—all potential training data unless you opted out of something buried in settings.

Employees can view for quality assurance. Customer support teams, engineering teams, sometimes entire departments have varying levels of access. They sign confidentiality agreements, sure. But those agreements rely on human ethics, not technical prevention. One curious employee, one bad day, one breach of trust—your private moments exposed.

Law enforcement requests are fulfilled silently. Ring provides footage to police without customer knowledge when they determine circumstances are urgent. Many others comply with legal requests without notifying customers until legally required—which might be never.

Third parties access your data. Cloud infrastructure providers, AI service vendors, analytics platforms—companies you've never heard of process your footage under data sharing agreements buried in terms of service. Each additional party is another potential breach point.

Data breaches happen constantly. When footage is stored unencrypted or with company-held keys, one successful hack compromises every customer. Your encrypted security camera footage—years of recordings from your private property—suddenly available to attackers because the company prioritized convenience over end-to-end encryption security.

How scOS Encrypted Storage Actually Works

scOS uses a multi-layered approach to protect your footage through encryption and infrastructure-enforced access controls.

Live streams are truly end-to-end encrypted. When you view live video, your app connects directly to your Intelligence Hub using WebRTC with DTLS/SRTP encryption. The stream travels directly from hub to app—scOS servers never see unencrypted video. This is true end-to-end encryption for live viewing.

Recordings use AWS KMS encryption. Recorded footage is stored in AWS Kinesis Video Streams with server-side encryption using AWS Key Management Service. AES-256 encryption protects all data at rest. This is industry-standard cloud encryption—strong protection, professionally managed.

Staff access is denied by infrastructure. AWS IAM policies explicitly deny all scOS staff—including administrators—access to video playback APIs. Staff can see metadata (that recordings exist, timestamps, storage usage) but cannot view video content. The DenyLiveKVS policy blocks GetMedia, GetHLSStreamingSessionURL, GetClip, and GetImages for all staff accounts.

AI processing happens on your Intelligence Hub. Most scOS intelligence runs locally on your hub—person recognition, activity patterns, threat detection all process footage without it leaving your property. Your hub runs the AI; cloud infrastructure provides coordination and briefings based on events, not video access.

Sharing is under your control. When you share footage with police, insurance, or family, you export clips from your app and share them directly. You control what's shared, when, and with whom. scOS doesn't mediate sharing—you own your footage.

Deletion is permanent. When you delete footage, it's removed from local storage, cloud backup, and temporary storage. This is true deletion—data is erased, not just marked for future removal.

The Psychology of Infrastructure-Enforced Privacy

There's an emotional difference between being told your footage is private and knowing the infrastructure physically prevents unauthorized access.

You can disagree with your spouse without wondering if someone's watching. Cameras in common areas capture intimate moments—arguments, reconciliations, private conversations. With traditional security cameras, there's always the nagging awareness that technically, someone at the company could be watching. scOS infrastructure eliminates this anxiety. IAM policies deny staff access—it's architecturally blocked, not merely against policy.

You can place cameras in private spaces without fear. Bedrooms, bathrooms, home offices—places where traditional cloud security cameras feel invasive because you're trusting strangers not to look. With scOS, staff accounts are denied access to video playback APIs. These spaces can be monitored for safety without surveillance compromise.

You stop wondering what if they get hacked? Every data breach announcement creates anxiety: was my footage exposed? With AWS KMS encryption, breaches still matter for account security—but your footage remains encrypted even if attackers access storage servers.

You maintain dignity through medical emergencies. Falls, seizures, health crises—cameras might capture your most vulnerable moments. These recordings could help medical professionals, insurance claims, legal protections. But traditional security camera storage means these deeply private moments exist on corporate servers where employees can view them. scOS infrastructure denies staff video access—preserving dignity through technical enforcement.

Privacy Has Trade-Offs—We're Honest About Them

Infrastructure-enforced privacy creates real operational constraints. We accept these because your privacy matters more than our convenience.

Support cannot view your footage to diagnose issues. When you contact support with video quality problems, our staff cannot view your footage to diagnose the issue. IAM policies deny access. You'll need to describe what you see, or export clips to share. This is less convenient than companies where support can browse your cameras—but that browsing ability is exactly what we're protecting you from.

Local processing has hardware constraints. Because AI analysis happens on your Intelligence Hub rather than cloud servers, processing capability depends on your hub's hardware. This limits some advanced features compared to companies that process decrypted footage in massive data centres.

Sharing requires your active participation. You cannot grant scOS staff access to review footage on your behalf. If you need to share footage with police, insurance, or others, you must export and share it yourself. We provide tools to make this easy, but we cannot mediate access because our infrastructure denies us access.

Law enforcement requests go to you. If police request footage, we direct them to you because our infrastructure denies us video access. This protects your privacy, but means you—not scOS—must decide whether to comply with legal requests. We cannot comply on your behalf even if we wanted to.

We're transparent about these trade-offs because privacy-conscious customers deserve informed choices. Many competitors avoid infrastructure-enforced privacy because broad employee access is operationally easier. We choose your privacy over our convenience.

Technical Implementation: How Access Denial Works

The technical architecture of scOS is designed around a principle: staff should be unable to access your footage even if they wanted to.

Live streams bypass scOS servers entirely. When you view live video, WebRTC establishes a direct peer-to-peer connection between your app and Intelligence Hub using DTLS/SRTP encryption. The video stream doesn't route through our servers—it goes directly from your property to your device. This is true end-to-end encryption for live viewing.

Recordings use AWS Kinesis Video Streams. Recorded footage is stored in AWS Kinesis Video Streams with server-side encryption using AWS KMS (Key Management Service). All data is encrypted at rest with AES-256 encryption—the same standard used for classified government data.

IAM policies deny staff access to video APIs. AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management) policies explicitly deny all scOS staff accounts—including administrators—access to video playback APIs. The DenyLiveKVS policy blocks GetMedia, GetHLSStreamingSessionURL, GetClip, and GetImages. Staff can query metadata (storage usage, timestamps, stream status) but cannot retrieve video content.

Tenant isolation through Cognito. Your account uses AWS Cognito with account_id claims that enforce tenant isolation. You can only access your own footage. Other customers cannot access yours. And staff accounts are denied video access entirely. Multiple layers of access control working together.

Audit through Data Ethics Zone. Our data handling practices are documented in our Data Ethics Zone, providing transparency about what data we collect, how it's protected, and who can access it. Technical explanations you can verify, not vague marketing promises.

GDPR, UK Data Protection, and Legal Compliance

scOS encrypted storage is designed to meet and exceed data protection requirements in the UK and EU. Infrastructure-enforced access controls provide technical guarantees beyond what regulations require.

Data minimization by design. UK GDPR requires processing only necessary data. Our IAM policies enforce this—staff cannot access video data, only the metadata necessary for infrastructure operation.

Right to deletion is absolute. When you delete footage, data is permanently removed from local storage, cloud backup, and temporary storage. This satisfies GDPR's right to erasure—true deletion, not retained backups.

Data portability built in. You can export your footage at any time through the app. Your data, your control. GDPR's data portability rights are built into the product.

Breach notification with honest impact assessment. If we experience a security breach, GDPR requires notification within 72 hours. Our notification can honestly state: Storage servers were compromised, but footage was encrypted with AWS KMS and attackers would obtain encrypted data without decryption capability.

For more on our data protection practices and GDPR compliance, visit our Data Ethics Zone.

Integration With scOS Intelligence

Infrastructure-enforced privacy doesn't prevent intelligent security—it makes intelligence more trustworthy.

AI analysis happens locally. Most scOS intelligence processing occurs on your Intelligence Hub. Person recognition, activity patterns, threat detection—all process footage locally without it leaving your property. Your hub runs the AI; scOS servers coordinate events and deliver briefings.

Pattern learning respects privacy. When scOS learns your home's routine patterns, it creates mathematical models of normal activity—not viewable recordings. These models inform threat detection without requiring cloud access to footage.

Sharing is under your control. When intelligence systems detect threats, you choose what to share with authorities or neighbours. Export specific clips from your app. scOS doesn't mediate sharing—you control what leaves your property.

Encrypted Security Camera Storage You Actually Control

When you buy scOS security cameras, you're not granting surveillance access to another company—you're establishing private video storage where infrastructure actively prevents unauthorized access.

Live streams connect directly to your app via WebRTC—scOS servers never see unencrypted video. Recordings use AWS KMS encryption with IAM policies that explicitly deny staff access to video playback. Not employees checking footage for fun—they're blocked at the infrastructure level. Not executives complying with government requests—they can't access video to comply even if they wanted to. Not hackers breaching our servers getting viewable footage—they'd get encrypted data.

Just you. Your home. Your cameras. Infrastructure that protects your privacy through technical enforcement, not policy promises.

This is what security cameras should have been from the beginning. Privacy by design. Encryption at every layer. Access denied by architecture. True ownership.

See all scOS features to understand how Encrypted Storage works alongside other privacy-focused capabilities to provide security that actually respects your privacy.