Your data can't be breached where it isn't
A vendor cloud full of thousands of shops' recordings is a target. Video we never recorded and never kept isn't in that pile. The safest breach is the one that has nothing of yours.
NO CLOUD RECORDING
We never record
or keep your footage.
Most camera-AI companies record your cameras to their cloud and keep the video. Vigil never does. Cameras on your own network are watched and stored on a box in your building; a camera behind a router is relayed live through a small connector, watched, and thrown away. Either way nothing of yours is archived — the only things kept are evidence snapshots of a real incident. Here's the whole data story, nothing hidden.
WHAT STAYS, WHAT LEAVES
Three lanes. That's the entire story.
Never recorded · whichever way you connect
Live camera streams
Any recordings / archive
Person & vehicle detection
Evidence snapshots
Your bot token & settings
Your continuous camera feed is never recorded or archived — on either setup. A camera on your own network is processed and stored on a box in your building and never leaves. A camera behind a router is relayed live through a small connector, processed the instant it arrives, and dropped — watched, never written down as a recording.
Leaves the box → to you · when there's an incident
The alert photo
To your own Telegram bot
When a person is confirmed after hours, the single alert image travels to your phone through your own Telegram bot — one you create, with a token only you hold. It's the delivery van for the alert, not a place your footage is stored. Turn the bot off and nothing leaves at all; the guard still detects and saves evidence on-site.
Optional · only if you switch on AI scene descriptions
One best frame → AI provider
Off by default-able
If you enable AI scene descriptions, one best frame of an incident is sent to the AI provider (Groq) to write the plain-English read. That's the only path that touches a third party — a single still, per incident, and only when you choose it. Leave it off and Vigil stays fully on-box with deterministic descriptions.
WHY IT MATTERS
We're not a cloud that hoards your video.
Works when the internet doesn't
Detection and evidence run locally, so a dropped line never blinds the guard. Alerts queue and send the moment you're back — and a camera going dark is itself an alert.
Simpler to keep lawful
Because we never keep or archive your video, your CCTV footprint stays small — far easier to reason about under GDPR and comparable privacy law than a system that records everything to a vendor cloud.
Evidence clears itself out
Saved images auto-delete after your plan's window — Home after 5 days, Business after 15, Large sites after 30 — so your footprint stays small and lawful. You get a 2-day heads-up in the console and on Telegram, and can download anything you need to keep before it expires.
STRAIGHT COMMITMENTS
What we will and won't do with your cameras.
✓
We won't record or keep your camera feeds. They're watched live and discarded — there is no archive of your premises, kept by us or anyone.
✓
You own the bot, you own the token. Alerts go through a Telegram bot you create. The token lives in your settings, masked in the UI, never in a config file we ship.
✓
The AI frame is your call. Only with AI scene descriptions on does a single still per incident reach Groq. Off = nothing leaves the box for AI.
✓
Pairing can't log in. The code that pairs a phone to alerts is deliberately different from your console PIN — a paired chat can never reach your console.
✕
We won't sell or mine your footage. There's no data business here. The product is the guard, not your video.
✕
We won't pretend the photo is magic. The alert image does travel to your phone. We say so plainly rather than claim "nothing ever leaves your site." Honesty is part of the security.
✓
You can take your evidence with you. Export any case as a photos-and-report package (.zip) to hand to police or your insurer. It's kept only until you download it or your retention window clears it — governed by the same CCTV rules as your cameras.
✓
Camera passwords are encrypted at rest. This protects backups and copies of the database; a full compromise of the host itself can still read them.
LEGAL & GDPR
Is it legal to run?
Yes — Vigil is person-detection on your own cameras, and it never records or keeps your video. Because there's no archive of your footage, your data footprint stays small, which keeps you on the right side of GDPR and similar privacy law more easily than a system that records everything to a vendor cloud.
Your responsibilities
Under GDPR and similar laws, operating CCTV makes you the data controller: put up clear signage that CCTV is in use, keep footage only as long as you need it, and be ready to handle a subject-access request. If you switch on AI scene descriptions, factor in that a single frame per incident is processed by Groq. We help you get the signage and settings right on your setup call.
Where the line is
Vigil confirms a person, not who the person is — it isn't facial-recognition identity matching against a database. The face close-up is evidence for you and any police report, kept only until you clear it. What you do with that evidence is governed by the same CCTV rules that already apply to your cameras.
When you need to act on an incident, you can export it — the annotated photos plus a plain-language report — as a single downloadable package. Nothing is sent anywhere automatically; the package leaves your premises only when you download it and pass it on.
Sleep on it — literally.
Two weeks free, no card, no contract. We never record or keep your footage.