本技术文档提供英文版本。
Fingerprints, faces, identity numbers and location history are among the most sensitive personal data an agency can hold. Sentinel ID gives the agency the tools to meet its data-protection law (for example Nigeria's NDPA 2023, the EU GDPR, South Africa's POPIA or India's DPDP Act). Meeting the law remains the agency's responsibility: take legal advice and record your decisions in a data-protection impact assessment.
Principles and how the platform supports them
| Principle | How Sentinel ID supports it |
|---|---|
| Lawful basis and purpose | Roles and permissions limit each user to the functions their duty requires. Every search and record view is logged against the user. |
| Data minimisation | Sensitive numbers (national ID, licence, address, contacts) are shown as [restricted] to roles without persons:sensitive. Configure camera retention and capture scope explicitly. Continuous streams, snapshots and event uploads have different data volumes and exposure. |
| Accuracy | Edits and deletions go through maker-checker approval. Wrong plate reads can be corrected, and the correction moves the sightings with it. |
| Storage limitation | Set retention periods for sightings, camera crops, video and closed cases; archive or delete on schedule. |
| Integrity and confidentiality | HTTPS deployment checks, a hash-linked activity log, misuse review, device approval and configured network restrictions. Storage encryption must be deployed and verified separately. |
| Accountability | Every print and email of a record carries a reference number and is logged. Activity reports per user are available to auditors. |
Human review of automated matches
Fingerprint, face and plate recognition can be wrong, especially across billions of records, in poor light, or with people under-represented in training data. Agency policy should say:
- a match is an investigative lead, confirmed by a trained examiner before any action;
- match thresholds are tuned on the agency's own data and reviewed regularly;
- decisions record who confirmed the match.
Community cameras
Volunteer cameras must follow the programme terms: visible signage, cameras pointed at public spaces only, and no recording of private property. Volunteers only send data; they never see the database.
Rights of individuals
The law may give people the right to know what is held about them, and to have errors corrected. The person record, the timeline and the activity log make it possible to answer such requests and to show who accessed the record.
Breach response
Agree a breach plan before go-live: who decides, who notifies the regulator and within what time, and how the activity log is preserved as evidence.