Understanding camera metadata in Security Center SaaS
Camera metadata is descriptive information generated by supported camera analytics. Security Center SaaS uses camera metadata to support intelligent search, investigations, and event monitoring.
What camera metadata is
Camera metadata is descriptive information generated by a camera's analytics engine about objects detected in the video stream. Examples of supported metadata include:
- Person detection
- Vehicle detection
- Object classification
How camera metadata is used
Camera metadata records what the camera detects. Camera analytics events are system events generated from those detections. In Security Center SaaS, metadata and analytics events are processed separately.
Camera metadata can be used to:
- Monitor for events of interest related to people, vehicles, or objects.
- Filter for past events using the Investigation task.
- Intelligent search can be used to query specific camera metadata using the Investigation task. For example, you can use natural language search and filters to find specific event types of interest: person of interest, vehicle of interest, similar people, and nearby activity.
Where to turn on camera metadata
You can enable camera metadata from a camera's Settings page, using the Activate camera metadata option. This option is only visible if the camera and its configuration support it.
When this option is off, your system stops listening to the camera metadata stream, but metadata is still collected on the camera.