Soprano Project

Our Natural Environment Research Council Innovation in Environmental Monitoring funded research project, Soprano - Sounding out the Environment, is about deploying acoustics-based EdgeAI for sustainable real-time biodiversity and environmental monitoring.

From April 2024, over the next three years, Soprano will develop and evaluate AI and microphone and hydrophone technology, deployed in the wild at specific test sites, for processing the natural soundscape to determine the occurrence of significant natural events and presence of animal species through recognising the distinct sounds that they each make both on land and in water. For example, Soprano will process sound from microphones and hydrophones to determine the presence of bat and bird species, fish activity and river bed load movement.

The species and natural event identification data produced by Soprano can be used to support research into biodiversity trends, the impacts of local construction projects on the natural environment, rewilding initiatives and climate change.

How we protect Individual's privacy

With Soprano we are processing sound in the natural environment and there is always a possibility that the Soprano system may therefore process human voices if people are located within range of the microphones that are deployed.

To protect individual privacy our EdgeAI approach enables us to process sounds completely self-contained within the locally deployed Soprano device. In this mode the processed audio is never held as a recording nor transmitted from the device itself. The resultant species and event detections determined from the audio by the EdgeAI are the only information communicated to the secure cloud-hosted Soprano web portal. This ensures personal privacy since if a person were to pass close by a Soprano device and be heard, there is no possibility of their voice or speech being recorded for later access nor transferred to another system.

In some of our test sites, we may also deploy, for a limited period of time, a type of device known as a field recorder or trail camera, which does record audio and/or video from the environment. In some deployments this may also include sound frequencies in the range of human hearing and vocalisation or people activity. Signage in the deployment area will make it clear when this occurs. However, we will only do this at those sites and in positions where the possibility of recording human vocalisations or sightings is highly unlikely. Any and all such recordings are recovered and processed securely and are only accessible to project team staff.  Automated processing and manual review is applied to these recordings to identify and remove any potential human presence.

Compliance with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)

As part of the GDPR we have completed a Data Protection Impact Assessment for the Soprano project that provides some more information about the Soprano system implementation and the mechanisms by which we ensure personal privacy. This is available for you to read in PDF format.

Contacting the Project Team

If you would like further information about Soprano or wish to explore how you might be able to be involved in the project, please contact the project lead, Simon Chapple, through email (Simon.Chapple@ed.ac.uk).