Privacy preserving speech processing in the cloud

The project will enable the processing of fully encrypted telephone data to facilitate secure voice conversations

in the cloud, or locally, such that only the end-user has access to the results. A user will be able to store, search

and convert to text any audio of telephone file in a way that cannot be intercepted or interfered with by a

cloud provider, or any third party in the transmission chain. Currently, a user has the choice of fully encrypting

their voice data for transmission and storage, or transmitting it "in clear". However, each choice involves a

compromise: The secure communication cannot be searched or processed using the processing power

available in the cloud whereas the unencrypted communication can be processed into text, or made searchable

for mass off-site storage but this compromises the privacy of the communication.

This project will adapt techniques originally applied to genomics, and re-interpret them to solve one of the

greatest data privacy challenges to-date: How can you keep control of privacy, while leveraging the power of

the cloud for search and storage?