Systems and methods for recognizing human actions from privacy-preserving optics

A method of performing machine vision on videos, the method performed by a system trained using machine learning, wherein the system includes an optical component connectable to a processor, the method comprising:

• capturing, using the optical component, a distorted video, wherein the optical component comprises a set of optimal camera lens parameters that control the distortion of the distorted video;
• performing a machine vision task on the distorted video, wherein the machine vision task determines a first classification from the distorted video;
• performing an adversarial classification using an adversarial neural network on the distorted video, wherein the adversarial classification determines whether private information can be determined from the distorted video;
• and
• optimizing parameters associated with the optical component, the machine vision task, and the adversarial neural network based on the first classification of the distorted video and the adversarial classification.