Patent ID: 7792295

Claim:
A monitoring camera system comprising an imaging device which captures video and distributes captured video, and a video display device which receives and displays the captured video, wherein said imaging device includes: a capturing unit operable to capture video; an encryption key storage unit in which encryption key data is stored for at least one individual, the encryption key data being associated with a video display device that is permitted to display captured video that includes video of the at least one individual; an object judging unit operable to judge whether or not the captured video includes video of the at least one individual associated with the video display device; a limited-capture video generation unit operable to (i) convert at least a part of the captured video that includes video of the at least one individual into encrypted video, by encrypting the part of the captured video that includes video of the at least one individual using the encryption key data, which is associated with the video display device and is stored for the at least one individual, (ii) generate limited-capture video, which includes the encrypted video, when said object judging unit judges that the captured video includes video of the at least one individual, and (iii) output the captured video, when said object judging unit judges that the captured video does not include video of the at least one individual; and a video distribution unit operable to distribute one of the limited-capture video and the captured video to said video display device, the limited-capture video being generated by said limited-capture video generation unit and the captured video being outputted by said limited-captured video generation unit, and said video display device includes: a reception unit operable to receive one of the limited-capture video and the captured video; a decryption key storage unit operable to store decryption key data which is associated with said video display device; and a video decryption unit operable to generate decrypted video by decrypting the encrypted video included in the limited-capture video using the decryption key data.