Rekor Systems awarded patent for privacy-enhanced traffic management tech

Rekor Systems announced that the U.S. Patent Office has awarded it a patent titled “Systems and Methods for Consolidated Traffic Monitoring with Privacy Protection.” This innovative patent – in addition to multiple other patent filings and awards – introduces a multi-functional sensor that effectively safeguards personally identifiable information while serving a wide range of applications. The newly patented Rekor traffic sensor technology uniquely integrates advanced imaging and image recognition processing into a single unit, streamlining traffic monitoring and management for departments of transportation, commercial entities, and law enforcement agencies. The sensor generates accurate per-vehicle records by capturing high-resolution vehicle images and processing them using algorithms. A key feature of Rekor’s sensor is its military-grade, irreversible data encryption process, which protects personally identifiable information while retaining essential data for traffic and mobility analytics. This is achieved by applying sophisticated obfuscation functions, such as hash functions, to irreversibly encrypt PII into a unique, anonymized ‘vehicle proxy.’ This transformation ensures that the data transmitted off the device maintains individual privacy, enhancing the security of the transmitted information and preventing unauthorized abuse. The consistency of the unique proxy identifier, specific to each vehicle, allows the sensor to track movement patterns over time without revealing any personal information, thus providing valuable insights into traffic movements without infringing on individual privacy rights.