An Internet protocol camera, or IP camera, is a type of digital video camera commonly employed for surveillance, and which unlike analog closed circuit television CCTV camerascan send and receive data via a computer network and the Internet. Although most cameras that do this are webcams, the term "IP camera" is usually applied only to those used for surveillance.

There are two kinds of IP cameras:

Centralized IP cameras, which require a central Network Video Recorder (NVR) to handle the recording, video and alarm management.
Decentralized IP cameras, do not require a central Network Video Recorder (NVR), as the cameras have recording functionality built-in and can thus record directly to digital storage media, such as flash drives, hard disk drives or network attached storage.