Martyn’s Law CCTV compliance for venues and local authorities

The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025, better known as Martyn's Law, has shifted public protection obligations for venues with 200+ capacity and set a higher bar for premises with 800+ capacity, with responsible persons expected to deter, monitor, respond to and learn from hostile activity through CCTV footage.

The problem most venue managers, event organisers, and local authority compliance teams are now confronting is that Martyn's Law requires sharing CCTV footage, and UK GDPR still requires you to protect personal data of people not relevant to the security purpose. This is possible with video redaction tools, such as our software, Identity Cloak.

There are 4 key factors to consider when choosing a video redaction solution for Martyn's Law compliance:

1. Rapid, defensible redaction

2. Ability to show persons of interest

3. Ability to process complex requests

4. Provide audit trail for proof of compliance

Below, we’ll discuss those factors in more detail.

#4 requirements for CCTV redaction software compliant with Martyn’s Law

#Rapid, defensible redaction of CCTV footage

When you need to provide footage of an incident, you need to disclose it quickly, but only sharing what’s necessary and proportionate. The Act does not override UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018, or the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice. 

That means bystanders, staff and other individuals must still have their identities protected. To do that, you need a tool that can identify and blur every face, body and licence plate in long CCTV clips in minutes, and produce output you can hand over with confidence.

#Unblurring persons of interest 

A blanket blur is rarely what's needed. 

Investigations, review of footage at a public event, or threat response audits will require showing specific individuals clearly. 

A good video redaction tool for Martyn's Law should auto-detect every person in the footage by default, then let you selectively unblur persons of interest and auto-track them across the entire clip.

#Handling complex requests

Single-camera, single-subject redactions are the easy case. 

But what if you need to provide footage from multiple cameras and redact all personal data, including information screens in the background and audio tracks from body-worn cameras with a 24-hour turnaround? 

Most teams would likely need to export raw clips, send them to an outsourced vendor, and absorb both the cost and the third-party data-handling risk.

With a video redaction solution, you should be able to complete such projects in-house, on-premise, including custom blur shapes for signage and screens, audio redaction, and trimming footage to relevant sections.

Read more about different examples of complex video redaction scenarios and how to select software able to tackle them.

#Audit trail and proof of compliance

Clips and disclosure records form part of the audit trail — and you'll want to show that every disclosure was minimised, proportionate, and limited to what was necessary for the security purpose. 

A single tool that produces redacted outputs, preserves originals unchanged, and keeps a clear record is more defensible than manual or email records.

#Identity Cloak for meeting Martyn’s Law and UK GDPR requirements

Identity Cloak is an AI-powered video redaction tool that fulfills all 4 requirements mentioned above. Below we break down how it helps venues and councils redact video footage quickly and compliantly.

#Rapid, on-premise CCTV redaction

Identity Cloak runs on-premise, behind your firewall, and uses AI to automatically detect and track every face, body and licence plate across your CCTV footage. With Identity Cloak, even longer or complex videos can be processed in-house by a single compliance officer with minimal training.

Your staff just upload the clip, run autotracking, unmask persons of interest, review, and export. The original file is left untouched; the redacted output is irreversible.

Identity Cloak can be used for:

1. Faces and bodies blur
   Identity Cloak's AI will find and blur every person in every frame automatically.

2. Licence plates blurring
   Plates in any vehicles passing through the scene are detected and blurred automatically.

3. Custom shaped blur for static signage, screens, or displays
   Identity Cloak's layered blur tool lets you apply a fixed mask over signage. If a person of interest walks in front of it, they remain visible while the signage stays blurred (something most video redaction tools can't do).

4. Audio redaction
   Remove parts or all of the audio track before disclosure.

#Selective unblurring of persons of interest

By default, everyone is blurred after AI detects and tracks moving people or cars. 

You then unblur only your persons of interest, and Identity Cloak auto-tracks them through the entire clip. 

This is the foundation of a defensible "minimum necessary" disclosure according to the UK GDPR's data minimisation principle and Martyn's Law's proportionality expectation.

You can configure each redaction in just a few clicks, and any adjustments to tracking propagate automatically across the timeline. There's no need for the frame-by-frame manual masking that traditional video editing tools require.

#Handling crowded, fast-moving and low-quality footage

Public venues or event spaces rarely have studio-quality footage. 

Identity Cloak is designed to handle real-world CCTV footage: crowded scenes, fast-moving people, low-light recordings and proprietary VMS exports.

The system supports:

• CCTV, bodycam, dashcam and mobile-phone footage

• MP4 and AVI files, plus a built-in screen recorder to convert proprietary formats

• Manual tracking adjustment for edge cases the AI doesn't catch

• Custom shape and size blur tools for non-standard objects

• Layered blurring for static objects 

This combination is what makes Identity Cloak workable across the full range of relevant venues, from a 200-capacity community hall up to a city-wide council CCTV network.

#Compliant, audit-ready outputs

With Identity Cloak:

• The original file is preserved unchanged for data integrity (you always have the source of truth).

• The redacted output is irreversible, so once footage is disclosed it can't be un-blurred by the recipient.

• The video is exported as a new file, separate from the original

• On-premise operation means no third-party processors

Because Identity Cloak handles trimming, blurring, and audio redaction, you won’t have to chain together multiple platforms, keeping every output consistent, defensible and auditable.

You can show that every CCTV disclosure made under Martyn's Law was minimised, proportionate, defensibly documented, and processed without exposing personal data to third parties.

#Be prepared for Martyn's Law CCTV requirements with Identity Cloak

Identity Cloak gives responsible persons, council CCTV teams, event organisers and venue compliance leads a fast, secure, on-premise way to:

• Redact CCTV, bodycam and dashcam footage in under 12 minutes on average

• Keep persons of interest visible while protecting bystanders and staff

• Process footage in-house — no outsourcing, no third-party data exposure

• Produce defensible, irreversible, audit-ready video clips

Facit’s venue and local government customers include Wembley Park, Tate Museums, Conwy County Borough [add link] and others.

Relevant articles

• A guide to CCTV video redaction and GDPR compliance

• How to choose the best video anonymisation software

• Audio redaction for regulatory compliance