Data security is a key stake for the movies industry. If a movie were visible anywhere before its commercial release, it would have a catastrophic impact on the revenues. Studios therefore follow very strict rules to protect their data, in compliance to recommendations by the DCS, among others.

In an industry where collaboration and sub-contracting are common, going to a fully digital workflow pushes even further the need for reliable data exchange tools.

One means of protection consists in encrypting the data with a public key / private key pair. Another one relies on fingerprinting the data with a known message (usually the name of the  addressee of the copy), in order to be able to authenticate the potential responsible for the leak. Fingerprinting algorithms must be reliable and resist to the most common image transformation techniques, without altering the image quality.

During the HD3D.IIO project, we have evaluated encryption and fingerprinting technologies, and developed a secured web data exchange mailbox.