School safety is no longer just about locked doors and campus patrols. As threats evolve, so do the technologies deployed to counter them—with video surveillance now central to incident detection, prevention and response.
Protecting our children and teachers from harm is non-negotiable. But doing so responsibly means more than deploying surveillance cameras; it means safeguarding the personal data those systems capture before sharing or releasing the footage externally.
That’s why federal legislation like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, along with new state-level laws like Tyler’s Law, have made privacy compliance a key component of any school safety initiative.
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To meet these demands, many school districts have turned to former law enforcement professionals to lead their security programs—bringing deep expertise in public safety, transparency, and data accountability.
Just as importantly, these individuals are well-versed in the legal obligations under frameworks like the Freedom of Information Act, making them uniquely qualified to help schools navigate the intersection of safety, compliance and community trust.
By leveraging best practices from policing with modern privacy solutions available on the market, administrators can strengthen school safety without sacrificing community trust.
Managing privacy in school environments
While surveillance plays a critical role in maintaining school safety, it must be paired with strong privacy practices that ensure compliance with legislation and maintain the trust of students, parents and educators.
Just as law enforcement agencies operate under frameworks like FOIA, FERPA provides similar guardrails for education. This ensures that when surveillance footage is reviewed after an incident—by parents, legal representatives, school insurers or law enforcement— clear checks and balances are in place to protect student identities and regulate access before it’s shared.
As such, when surveillance footage is released externally, every frame must be carefully reviewed to redact personally identifiable information. Former law enforcement officials know all too well that manual video redaction is extremely time-consuming.
Pairing that with the fact that responding to subpoenas, parent requests and regulatory inquiries often comes with strict deadlines typically ranging from 10 to 20 days, an autonomous video redaction solution becomes a must instead of a nice-to-have.
Protecting students with video redaction
Fortunately, AI-powered privacy tools are giving schools the power to anonymize personal data in their video streams. Whether it’s live or recorded video, a privacy “layer” can use AI to digitally detect and redact the video data that needs protecting, such as students’ faces and health data.
These easy-to-use solutions are accessible to all types of educational institutions, allowing them to self-serve directly online, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual redaction while maintaining accuracy and operational readiness.
These surveillance systems can help schools be more transparent in their data collection with other educational institutions, the general public and, most importantly, students and parents—which is critical to maintaining community trust.
For example, parents can be notified of what personally identifiable information is redacted from the video stream and where the data is being stored, potentially easing insecurity about surveillance and ensuring even stronger relationships between schools, parents and the community.
Embedding privacy into the foundation of school safety
Schools can no longer choose between security and privacy—they need both. Schools that fail to account for privacy risks are not just exposing themselves to regulatory penalties, they are risking the trust and confidence of the very communities they are tasked with protecting.
Few are better positioned to uphold both priorities than experienced ex-law enforcement and other public safety officers, now applying their expertise to keep students and educators safe.
These public safety professionals bring exactly the skills school environments require: the ability to balance transparency with discretion, safeguard sensitive information and think critically about the broader implications of capturing and sharing video in high-stakes situations.
This balancing act—protecting lives while protecting data—is precisely where the experience of both seasoned public safety professionals and privacy-first tools converge. Together, they ensure that the footage schools rely on for protection can be used effectively, ethically, and lawfully.
By embedding privacy protections into every surveillance decision, schools can build safer, more resilient environments grounded in both operational integrity and community trust.
