A method and apparatus for conducting surveillance

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for processing video image data, so as to apply different types of processing to different aspects of video image data. A detection process is arranged to detect a item, object or event appearing or occurring in a scene being viewed by an image device. An image data process is responsive to the detection of the object or event and to control information to process the image data for a portion of the scene where the object or event appears or occurs, differently from the processing of the image data associated with the rest of scene. For example, the object may be a person's face, and the face image data may be processed to produce high resolution data, the rest of the scene being provided in low resolution. This saves on processing, transmission and storage.