A security camera system having one or more monitoring cameras, each of which transmits a digital video signal after compressing/encoding, are connected to a controller via a network. In the controller, a media control section stores the video signal supplied from the monitoring cameras in a storage medium and reads out the video signal as needed. Image processing for privacy protection is carried out to the real-time video signal supplied from the monitoring camera and the video signal read out from the storage medium. The level of the image processing for privacy protection is switched depending on the authority of a user who views the video image. Further, even for the same user authority, the image processing level for privacy protection is switched and adjusted depending on the size of the object in the video image.