Abstract: The method for restricting access to sensitive contents of digital images using the digital watermarking technique for encoding and decoding sensitive contents of images is characterized in that the sensitive contents of an image are obscured, and the information necessary for the high quality reconstruction is encoded in the insensitive area of the transmitted image by modification of the DCT spectrum coefficients. The information concerning the obscured contents is retained by means of transform coefficients and processed independently. Noise with statistics identical to that of the digital watermark is inserted into the image after decoding. The system contains encoding unit including acquisition module connected with sensitive contents encoding module through sensitive patterns automatic detection module with attached memory buffer. Also, acquisition module is connected directly with sensitive contents encoding module and with compression module.