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■ Trust

How Signals works, and what it will not do.

01 Architecture

The building keeps the data. We keep the discipline.

Processing, placed deliberately
Signals runs on an appliance in your building by default, and uses cloud processing where it serves the deployment better. That placement is an optimization decision made with you, not a data grab: whatever the path, results land in storage you control, and no video is stored by default.
No tracking. Accurate counting.
One distinction matters, so we make it plainly. To count accurately, Signals tells people apart in the moment: a guest who passes two cameras is one visitor, not three. That distinction lives and dies inside the appliance. It is not a name, not a face on file, not a profile, and it does not follow anyone beyond the count. Nothing about a person is retained, and the same rule covers staff and guests.
Opt-in identity, where lawful
Some operators want recognition or loyalty features. Where regulations allow them, they are available strictly opt-in: consent collected by the operator, risk and custody with the operator, processing under the operator's instruction. Off is the default.
02 Identity and biometrics

No profiles, no faces on file, by default.

The default deployment retains no biometric identifiers and builds no profiles; the in-the-moment distinction used for accurate counting is discarded on the spot. Opt-in identity features are offered only where regulations allow them, with consent collected by you and held by you. Your security and privacy teams get straight answers to their questionnaires; where a question needs specifics about your deployment, we answer it for your deployment rather than in the abstract.

03 The objection you are already thinking

"It will miscount, and I will stop trusting it."

That is the right first question, and camera analytics deserves it. Three plain answers. First, accuracy is not one number: it depends on camera angle, lighting, and occlusion, and the compatibility survey grades every camera on exactly those before anything ships, which is also where we show you measured results from the live deployment. Second, every signal carries a precision floor: a signal that cannot hold its floor in your building does not alert, it reports as a count you can inspect until it earns alerting. Third, when the system is unsure, it says so and holds its hand; an uncertain event becomes a logged observation you review in the morning. Some cameras will not make the grade. We will name them in the survey rather than let them miscount in production.

04 Cameras and systems

What the box can read.

Which cameras work?
Modern IP cameras over RTSP/ONVIF are read directly, PoE or otherwise. Analog estates behind an encoder or a DVR/NVR with stream access are readable as they are. An NVR already in place stays in place; Signals reads alongside it and replaces nothing that works. Where a unit genuinely cannot serve, resolution, mount, or age, we say so plainly and swap only that unit.
What about my POS and everything else?
Register and inventory access is read-only, by API where the vendor allows it. Where a vendor drags its feet, we ingest the scheduled reports the system already emails, the same tables, with zero rebuild when the API lands. Reservations, labor, e-commerce, webhooks, and a CSV drop-folder round out the connector catalog; each source is a config block added in hours.
What happens when the internet fails?
The appliance is engineered to buffer through link loss and replay on recovery, so signals that run on the box keep accumulating through an outage.
What happens when the appliance fails?
The engineering standard the appliance is held to: a watchdog restarts failed components so one fault degrades one answer, never the whole system; updates install to a second partition and a failed update rolls back to the previous image; health telemetry flags a problem, an unplugged camera raises a health alert and breaks nothing else. One more plain answer: because no video is stored, an after-hours event is a logged record of time, camera, and duration, with no footage behind it; if your operation needs footage, your existing NVR keeps doing that job and Signals does not replace it. When hardware needs a human, escalation reaches an engineer directly.
05 Data handling and paperwork

Short answers for the security review.

What do you retain?
Counts, events, and answers land in storage you control, and retention there runs on your schedule. No video is stored by default, and custody of your operational data stays with you.
SOC 2?
Not yet, and no document of ours claims otherwise. We hold ISO 27001 and ISO 9001. SOC 2 Type I begins when an enterprise engagement requires it, followed by Type II on the standard observation window. That sequencing is stated here so nobody has to ask on a call.
Manual override?
Every action path has one, in every edition, as a design rule. Signals proposes; a person you named signs off. Anything Signals does on its own is logged and reversible from the same screen.
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