Video Redaction for Attorneys

Video Redaction for Attorneys Who Turn Over Discovery Without Burning Hours

Evidence Copilot gives criminal-defense teams frame-accurate video, audio, image, and PDF redaction — with AI-suggested regions that are never auto-applied and originals that are never touched.

Redaction Is Eating Your Week — And One Missed Face Is an Ethics Problem

• Redaction for discovery turnover eats the week nobody has — Digital evidence is a factor in about 90% of criminal cases, and that means bystander faces, minor witnesses, license plates, and PII screens show up constantly in bodycam, interrogation footage, and jail calls you have to turn over. The frame-by-frame blurring falls on attorneys and investigators who are already stretched — the National Public Defense Workload Study found public defenders carry roughly three times too many cases, and Rhode Island's system needed 136 attorneys per a 2017 NACDL/ABA workload study but had only 49. Nobody has a spare Friday to drag rectangles across 40 hours of bodycam before an expert review deadline.
• One missed face is a witness-safety problem; one over-redaction is a Brady problem — Redaction is a two-sided risk for defense teams. Miss a victim's face or a PII screen in the file you turn over, and you've compromised a witness and created ethics exposure. Redact too aggressively, and you invite a prosecution objection that you buried exculpatory material — a Brady rule fight you don't want. Legacy redaction studios built for police FOIA shops give you no middle path and no record of what you chose to obscure and why.
• Chain of custody for digital evidence doesn't forgive improvised tools — Digital evidence chain of custody is more volatile than physical evidence, and redaction workflows built ten years ago don't hold up under scrutiny. Caseload standards from the Delphi-method workload studies never accounted for modern media review, so defenders end up redacting in whatever tool is at hand — no audit trail, no derived-file discipline, no answer when the state asks what was modified and when. That improvisation is a liability in any case where the redacted file becomes an exhibit.

Why Defenders <span class="gradient">Redact in Evidence Copilot</span>

• Cut redaction time without ceding judgment — Cut redaction time without ceding judgment: on ingest, AI-suggested region cards surface bystander and victim faces, minors, license plates, and PII screens — each marked 'AI-suggested — needs review' and never auto-applied. You review and approve instead of hunting frame by frame through hours of bodycam, which matters when public defenders carry roughly three times the recommended caseload. Manual frame-accurate redaction (black or blur) and word-level audio muting are still there when you need them.
• Originals stay untouched and every action is audited — Originals stay untouched and every action is audited: each redaction creates a new derived file, so the original bodycam, jail call, or scanned report is never modified. When chain-of-custody questions come up — and digital evidence is a factor in about 90% of criminal cases — you have a clean record of exactly what was redacted, when, and by whom.
• Redaction sits inside the full review workflow — Redaction sits inside the full review workflow: redact the clip you're turning over, then export it in an exhibit pack with video clips, still frames, quoted excerpts, and a MANIFEST.md citation index — gated by per-member export permission. Transcription, cross-exam prep, and redaction for discovery turnover happen in one workspace instead of three disconnected tools.

What's included

• Manual frame-accurate video redaction with drag-a-rectangle black or blur regions for bodycam and interrogation footage.
• Audio redaction where you pick the exact spoken words and that span is muted — ideal for jail calls and 911 audio with PII.
• AI-suggested regions for bystander, victim, and minor faces, PII screens, and license plates, filed as suggestion cards marked 'AI-suggested — needs review.'
• Image and PDF redaction with bounding boxes preserved, so scanned police reports and photo exhibits can be redacted and still cited.
• Immutable originals and a full audit trail: every redaction is a new derived file and every action is logged.
• Exhibit pack exports (video clips, still frames, quoted excerpts, MANIFEST.md citation index) gated by per-member export permission.

Quick wins

• Use audio redaction on jail calls by picking the exact spoken words from the diarized transcript — the span is muted, no clumsy segment clipping, and the original call file stays intact.
• Redact PII in scanned police reports with PDF redaction that keeps bounding boxes — the OCR'd text stays searchable and citable even after the redacted derived file is created.

How it works

1. Upload the discovery dump — Send bodycam video, interrogation footage, jail calls, photos, and scanned police reports (up to 2 GB per file) by web upload, email attachment, or your case's inbound email address.
2. Review AI-suggested redaction cards — Suggested regions for bystander/victim/minor faces, PII screens, and license plates appear as cards marked 'AI-suggested — needs review.' Approve, adjust, or draw your own rectangles — nothing is auto-applied.
3. Export redacted derived files — Each redaction is saved as a new derived file with the original untouched and every action audited. Export redacted clips in exhibit packs with a MANIFEST.md citation index, gated by per-member export permission.

How Evidence Copilot <span class="gradient">Handles Redaction</span> for Criminal-Defense Teams

• Frame-accurate manual video redaction — drag a rectangle, choose black or blur — plus audio redaction where you mute the exact spoken words, and image/PDF redaction with bounding boxes preserved.
• AI-suggested redaction regions (bystander/victim/minor faces, PII screens, license plates) arrive as review cards marked 'AI-suggested — needs review' — never auto-applied.
• Every redaction is a new derived file; originals are immutable and every action is fully audited.

Why we're different

• AI-suggested redaction regions never auto-apply — every card is marked for human review
• Frame-accurate manual video redaction: drag a rectangle, black or blur
• Audio redaction mutes the exact spoken words you pick
• Image and PDF redaction with bounding boxes kept for downstream use
• Every redaction is a derived file — originals are immutable and audited
• OCR'd scanned reports and photo evidence stay searchable and citable after redaction
• Published pricing, no sales wall — Solo $39/user/mo, PD Office $750/attorney/yr
• Defense-only by design, built for public-defender offices and solo defenders

Every AI answer cites the exact source moment it came from, and every redaction is an audited derived file with the original untouched — built for defenders, defense investigators, and public-defender offices.

What clients say

I used to spend entire Fridays blurring faces in bodycam before turning discovery over to my expert. Now the AI-suggested region cards give me a starting list — marked 'needs review,' nothing auto-applied — I approve what's right, and the original file is never touched. Every redaction is a new derived file, so I can show exactly what I obscured.

— Dana Whitfield

Muting the exact spoken words in a jail call — instead of clipping whole segments from the Deepgram transcript — is exactly what we needed. Every redaction is a derived file with an audit entry, which made our chief comfortable immediately. With caseloads at three times the national standard, we can't afford a separate redaction tool and a separate workflow.

— Marcus Oyelaran

We redact the clip, then export it in an exhibit pack with the MANIFEST.md citation index and quoted excerpts. Redaction used to be a separate tool and a separate workflow — now it's part of the same review as the transcript and the cross-exam prep, and exports are gated by per-member permission.

— Priya Raghunathan

Frequently asked questions

Book a 20-minute walkthrough to see frame-accurate redaction on your own bodycam footage — or start on the Solo plan at $39/user/mo with published pricing and no sales wall.