Platform Privacy

This document describes the various privacy-preserving features of Soundryx sensors.

Audio

Sensors never store or transmit audio.

A Soundryx sensor uses an array of microphones to listen to ambient sound.

An on-sensor machine learning (ML) model analyzes the data from the microphone array for evidence of drone aircraft, gunshots, and other potential threats.

The actual audio recorded by the microphone array is discarded. The ML model's threat analysis is what gets sent to the backend.

Radio

Sensors do not intercept private radio signals.

Soundryx may use radio sensors to identify nearby aircraft transponder signals, such as FAA Remote ID and ADS-B.

Soundryx may also use its radios to look for nearby cell phone towers, Wi-Fi networks, and Bluetooth devices. But a Soundryx sensor (for the civilian market) only consumes radio signals that the radio transmitters intend for the sensor to consume.

Soundryx's civilian devices do not perform passive listening of radio communications that are not intended for them to receive.

Sensors do not require continuous radio communication.

Some Soundryx sensors communicate with a Soundryx backend server over LTE or Wi-Fi. The customer may configure sensors to either:

1. send frequent status updates to the backend.
2. only alert the backend when a threat has been detected.

Option #2 is the better strategy when deploying sensors to locations where the adversary may use radio signals to find sensors and destroy them.

Some sensors may communicate over Ethernet instead of LTE or Wi-Fi, in which case the sensor may not need to communicate over radio at all.

Federation

Soundryx makes it possible to share unauthorized aircraft alerts with other Soundryx customers that are geographically nearby.

TIP

This section summarizes the core privacy tenets of federation. Read more on the Federation page.

Federation is not required.

Customers may operate their own Soundryx networks without having to share any data with other customers.

Federation is opt-in.

A Soundryx network's administrator can enable or disable federation with other private-sector customers at any time.

The administrator may separately enable or disable sharing alerts with law enforcement, military, and civilian government agencies that have joined Soundryx.

Only unauthorized aircraft alerts are shared.

Networks in a federation only share one type of alert: aircraft that have been detected without a transponder.

All other types of alerts--aircraft with transponders and all ground-based alerts (boats, gunshots, etc.)--are not shared with other networks.

Sensor locations are kept private.

Networks never share the locations of their own sensors with other networks.

Aircraft alerts contain only the projected trajectory of the detected aircraft, which does not reveal the locations of the sensors that detected the aircraft.

Customer information is kept private.

Federation never requires the sharing of any information about the organizations or personnel that operate any Soundryx network.

The networks that share data in a federation do so anonymously.