This is the story of a multibillion-dollar data potential and overcoming the two main barriers holding it back. Let’s look at where we are now.
The global surveillance market was valued at an estimated $35 bn in 2021, with a billion surveillance cameras in place and $6tn already invested in public camera infrastructure. The sector is expected to reach a value of $67bn in 2027.
This rapid development has been driven by industries such as transportation, aerospace, retail, healthcare, hospitality, and construction. They are seeking more advanced processing and utilization of visual data with the support of AI on such matters as crowd dynamics, parking availability, or security protocol violations. Local and national authorities are also increasingly using camera surveillance tech to aid public safety, especially in this post-Covid age.
Two main issues hinder this gigantic potential data market. The first one is Privacy! As tech opportunities increase, so personal data privacy laws become ever more stringent. For example, the EU’s 2016 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law specifies that personal data is anything gathered by automated or non-automated systems that allow an individual to be directly or indirectly identified — either alone or in combination with other information.
This clearly presents a problem for camera surveillance tech, especially if it’s used in public areas, records people’s faces, or is equipped with facial recognition software. How do companies and authorities handle, process, and store footage that could infringe personal data protection rights? Post-recording anonymization of data (e.g. pixelation of faces or car registrations) is also not 100% GDPR compliant. Data breach costs amounted to around $6tn in 2021. Although regulators are making it harder and harder to comply with data privacy regulations, companies are still fined due to a lack of compliance. The latest example is the €20m fine in Italy for Clearview AI.
Infrastructure costs represent the second significant barrier to growth. As we noted, the current tally of more than 1bn active global cameras has cost more than $6tn to install, operate and maintain. Hardware or software maintenance often leads to downtime, which results in costly or important data gaps.
Smart city initiatives in particular have to consider the total cost of ownership involved in their camera networks. One study of a 1,500-camera video surveillance project over a 10-year lifecycle discovered that 34% of overall costs came from the initial hardware and software investment, with the other 66% accounted for by installation, maintenance, and operation.
NATIX Network is our newest web3 project aiming to solve the twin barriers of infrastructure costs and personal data privacy with an elegant crowd-sourced and crypto-driven concept. It is powered by NATIX and our patent-pending technology which can turn any camera smart and privacy compliant.
Here’s how NATIX Network works:
The 1 billion fixed CCTV cameras are not the only ones out there. There are 44 billion additional cameras in mobile phones, drones, cars, etc. worldwide. Also, an increasing number of these devices are equipped with AI accelerated chips, which enables them to run computer vision AI efficiently. NATIX Network is about to make these AI-friendly devices part of the largest camera network in history. Our aim is to turn any camera, anywhere, into a visual sensor providing data to subscribers.
It’s a solution that reduces infrastructure costs to $0, as the cameras are owned by private individuals. We allow them to utilize their devices, mine metadata (actively or passively) and earn crypto (i.e. our native utility token). The value of the data will be decided by market demand and the data type. As a result, NATIX Network creates a new crowdsourced data economy powered by the “Internet of cameras” and cryptocurrency.
In this way, everybody wins: the camera owners earn crypto and subscribers have access to the data they need without the significant infrastructure costs.
Our market-entry products make the transition even easier. Our community does not need to purchase a special HW to become part of NATIX Network and earn crypto.
In the first phase, we release our Mobile app — a play-to-earn app compatible with iOS and Android devices. Anyone can download the app, explore their environments, capture target data and earn crypto. Users can also place their phones on their car dashboard and earn crypto passively! NATIX Mobile app targets 380m active iPhones that are already NATIX-Software compatible (i.e. equipped with an AI accelerated Apple Bionic Chip) and millions more Android devices with a similar capability.
As for the second phase, we will release NATIX-enabled smart cameras that provide a “set and forget” functionality. Our community can purchase and customize ready-to-use cameras (Smart IP cameras, Dashcams, etc.) or prototype and build their own (via our references and onboarding guidelines). These are supported by NATIX Device Manager — a web-based device management tool to register, authenticate, and manage devices on the NATIX Network.
NATIX will also release the “Dynamic Map” for B2B data buyers. They can subscribe to, purchase, and consume live data captured by this massive “Internet of cameras”. The functionalities include visualization, search, filtering, and API integration. For example, a utility company looking for up-to-date information on road conditions could learn about potholes when detected by our network. They can also get a live feed into the route planning system for their staff to fix them in the coming month.
This is the real beauty of the NATIX Network. Our EU patent-pending PII-Free Detection technology allows camera users to operate their devices in public spaces with no privacy compliance issues. The software turns any normal camera into a 100% privacy-compliant sensor.
By changing certain camera settings, images are created without personal information such as faces and registrations in contrast to non-GDPR-compliant post-processing and anonymization of images. We will soon release our PII-Free Vision SDK which includes a set of AIs that can analyze and recognize specific details and events (crowd sizes, potholes, vandalism, etc) on this type of imagery. Plus, NATIX’s low-code, hardware-agnostic platform means users can integrate our tech quickly and simply.
To recap: any camera, anywhere, turn into a monetizable sensor to capture the valuable data a company needs without costly infrastructure or data privacy complications. This is NATIX Network.
If you’re interested to learn more, join our telegram group. I look forward to chatting with you there.
NATIX is the initial team behind NATIX Network. We stand by the belief that technology should increase citizens’ quality of life without invading their privacy.
The company was founded in 2020 with the focus on developing a privacy-enforcing computer vision platform. Today, our patent-pending technology is the easiest way to make any camera smart and 100% privacy compliant. We are trusted by international names including E.ON, City of the Hague, and Deutsche Telekom.
NATIX is also backed by well-known names such as Techstars, Plug and Play Ventures, and CoinIX.
