How to Keep SCIF Room Conversations Private with Sound Masking

Is your SCIF really secure? Can you discuss classified information without risk of being overheard? Sound travels in a wave and, like water, looks for the areas of least resistance. The smallest opening allows sound to travel through it and potentially expose conversations, that should be secure and private, to be overheard. Precautions to maximize audible confidentiality do not need to be expensive, just implemented effectively.

What is a SCIF Room?

SCIF stands for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities and is typically designed and constructed for government or military facilities. SCIFs are secure facilities or areas for the transfer of sensitive and often classified information. The meaning or intention of a SCIF is complete confidentiality. A SCIF room should contain the transfer of information within with no leakage beyond its walls.

What are Some Common Issues with Military SCIFs?

SCIFs are designed to be secure and protected from outside unauthorized entry, as well as protect against data leaks of classified information. Furthermore, there are strict criteria, such as the DCID 6/9 Physical Security Standards for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, to allow agencies to acoustically safeguard against exposure. And, as security measures are paramount with military SCIFs, there are points of concern in order to help protect speech confidentiality. These common vulnerabilities include:

• Air Ducts
• Plenum Spaces (the area between the ceiling and the deck above)
• Walls
• Windows
• Doors

Imagine the potential, devastating implications of a confidential or top-secret conversation being overheard outside of a military SCIF, especially if it involves national security. State-of-the-art technology can be used by outside groups or intelligence sources to listen into conversations through windows, walls, ducts, and any small opening where sound can escape. This is the necessity for a complete solution to prevent the escape of any sensitive information from the facility or space.

What Is Sound Masking?

Sound masking is the introduction of ambient noise, typically a blend of white and pink noise, to levels necessary to mask speech. Without getting too technical, sound masking uses specific frequencies that cover, or mask, human speech frequencies and therefore creates speech privacy. In other words, noise is introduced into the space, where the ears are, at a level above indirect speech levels rendering the conversation unintelligible.

Sound masking in the common application raises the ambient background sound to a level where the unintended listener is not distracted by the conversations around them. It is designed to increase productivity and comfort within the space. If interested, you can read about the difference between sound masking and white noise here.

How Sound Masking Maintains SCIF Privacy Better than Other Solutions

Unlike the common application, SCIFs require confidentiality, not just speech privacy. There is a difference. According to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), there are two methods of measurement:

• Articulation Index (AI) which measures how intelligible speech is; and,
• Privacy Index (PI) which measures the unintelligibility of speech

In essence, they are measuring the same thing. As you can see below, Normal Speech Privacy can be achieved when you can understand 20% or less of a conversation. This is the target for the more common applications, such as commercial office or healthcare environments. Confidential Speech Privacy, a requirement for SCIFs, is much more difficult to achieve. Confidential Speech Privacy requires that the listener can understand 5% or less of that conversation.