The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, the research and development arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, has launched a multi-year research initiative to develop methods of altering spontaneous speech in real-time to enhance privacy.
The ODNI said Wednesday the Anonymous Real-Time Speech, or ARTS, program intends to discover ways to anonymize conversational speech to protect the speaker’s privacy. By modifying speech in real-time, the speakers’ identities and conversation can be protected.
IARPA awarded contracts for the ARTS program to Galois, Honeywell, Johns Hopkins University and SRI International, through a competitive broad agency announcement. These organizations will perform research to cover a wide range of objectives. Their research will be tested and evaluated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory.
The ARTS program is set to run for a period of 36 months. It will focus on the English language at first and eventually expand to include other spoken languages.
Mark Becker, ARTS program manager, pointed out that the manner of speaking is unique to every individual which serves as a powerful identifier.
“With the rise of biometric identification tools, our research seeks to add a critical layer of protection for intelligence officers who are carrying out some of the Intelligence Community’s most sensitive missions,” said Becker.
