Not Even Amateur Radio Will Be Safe in the Future: Mass Collection of RF Audio and Geolocational Data Underway

In the past, intelligence analysts have only had access to classified government satellite data when assessing radio frequency use all over the world. Now, a pilot program with HawkEye 360 is feeding those analysts commercial RF data, potentially opening the floodgates to a torrent of new unclassified data.

“NGA’s analyst community has never had access to commercial RF before. It’s always been in the domain of the government, for them to collect and supply to the analyst,” CEO John Serafini told C4ISRNET. “It’s been highly classified data.”

RF signals play a massive role in the modern world, enabling communications across vast distances without physical connections. With its formation-flying satellites, HawkEye 360 aims to make that invisible world visible. It’s satellites can detect RF emissions all over the world, which can then be used to identify and geolocate the signals’ origins. That level of analysis has a number of applications for the defense and intelligence community, from simply improving maritime domain awareness by detecting ships that have disabled their automatic identification system, to giving war fighters a better understanding of RF activity on the battlefield.

In September, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency launched the RF GEOINT Pilot program, importing HawkEye 360′s unclassified data as well as the company’s processed analytics.

One advantage of using the commercial data is that it’s unclassified, making it easier to share with mission and coalition partners. (Read more from “Not Even Amateur Radio Will Be Safe in the Future: Mass Collection of RF Audio and Geolocational Data Underway” HERE)

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