End-to-End Real-Time ROI-Based Encryption in HEVC Videos

In this paper, we present an end-to-end real-time encryption of Region of Interest (ROI) in HEVC videos. The proposed ROI encryption makes use of the independent tile concept of HEVC that splits the video frame into separable rectangular areas. Tiles are used to extract the ROI from the background and only the tiles forming the ROI are encrypted. The selective encryption is performed for a set of HEVC syntax elements in a format compliant with the HEVC standard. Thus, the bit-stream can be decoded with a standard HEVC decoder where a secret key is only needed for ROI decryption. In Inter coding, tiles independency is guaranteed by restricting the motion vectors to use only unencrypted tiles in the reference frames. The proposed solution is validated by integrating the encryption into the open-source Kvazaar HEVC encoder and the decryption into the open-source openHEVC decoder, respectively. The results show that this solution performs secure encryption of ROI in real time and with diminutive bitrate and complexity overheads.