# Setting Up IVS Private Channels
<a name="private-channels"></a>

Amazon Interactive Video Service (IVS) offers customers the ability to create private channels, allowing customers to restrict their streams by channel or viewer. Customers control access to video playback by enabling *playback authorization* on channels and generating signed JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) for authorized playback requests.

Requiring playback authorization on a channel is optional. When a viewer tries to watch a stream, if the channel has authorization enabled, Amazon IVS verifies that the viewer has a valid playback token in the request. A playback token is a JWT that the Amazon IVS customer signs (with a playback authorization key) and includes with every playback request for a channel that has playback authorization enabled.

**Topics**
+ [How Session Protection Works](private-channels-session-protection.md)
+ [Workflow for IVS Private Channels](private-channels-workflow.md)
+ [Create or Import an IVS Playback Key](private-channels-create-key.md)
+ [Enable Playback Authorization on IVS Channels](private-channels-enable-playback-auth.md)
+ [Generate and Sign IVS Playback Tokens](private-channels-generate-tokens.md)
+ [List IVS Playback Keys](private-channels-list-keys.md)
+ [Delete IVS Playback Keys](private-channels-delete-keys.md)
+ [Get Information about IVS Playback Keys](private-channels-get-info.md)
+ [Revoke IVS Viewer Sessions](private-channels-start-session-revocation.md)