Secure Geo-Spatial Processing via Image Coordinate Translation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems face challenges in processing sensitive geo-spatial data while protecting sensitive geographic information, as they often require secure environments, limiting data processing to authorized personnel with high-level security clearance, even though outside processing could be more cost-effective.
Innovation Solution
Transmitting image raster content without real-world geographic coordinates for data processing, receiving and translating image coordinates into real-world coordinates within a secure server, and performing calculations without revealing sensitive geographic information to non-secure operator environments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If geospatial processing is performed in secure government environments, then security of sensitive geographic data is maintained, but processing costs increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the geospatial processing workflow into two distinct parts: (1) secure server-side operations that handle sensitive geographic coordinate data and database queries, and (2) non-secure client-side operations that perform image display and data collection. This segmentation allows sensitive data to remain protected on government servers while enabling cost-effective processing using external computational resources.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary mechanism where the secure server acts as a mediator between the sensitive geographic database and the non-secure client environment. The server translates between secure geographic coordinates and non-secure image coordinates, allowing external processors to work with imagery without direct access to sensitive location data.
2Measurement precision
If real-world geographic coordinates are transmitted to operator devices, then data processing accuracy is maintained, but sensitive geographic information is exposed to unauthorized personnel
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and removes sensitive geographic coordinate information from the client-side processing environment. Only non-sensitive image coordinates (pixel row and column data) are transmitted to operator devices for processing, while the sensitive real-world coordinate mappings remain exclusively on the secure server.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameter representation from sensitive real-world geographic coordinates to non-sensitive image coordinates during transmission to client devices. The coordinate system is transformed such that processing can proceed using relative pixel positions without exposing absolute geographic locations, and the translation back to real coordinates occurs only on the secure server.
3Ease of operation
If aerial imagery is displayed with geographic location information, then operator navigation and measurement capabilities are enhanced, but security clearance requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates and transmits copies of aerial imagery that have been stripped of sensitive geographic metadata. These copied images retain all visual information needed for analysis and measurement while having geographic location data removed, allowing operators without security clearance to perform their duties.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transitions the coordinate representation from the geographic dimension (real-world coordinates requiring security clearance) to the image dimension (pixel coordinates that are non-sensitive). This dimensional change allows the same operational capabilities to function in a non-secure environment by operating in the image coordinate space rather than the geographic coordinate space.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems are disclosed including dividing a sensitive geographic region into three or more work regions; selecting geo-referenced aerial images for each particular work region such that at least a portion of the particular work region is depicted; transmitting, without information indicative of the geographic location depicted, a first of the images for a first of the work regions to an operator user device; receiving, from the device, at least one image coordinate selected within the first image by the operator, wherein the image coordinate is a relative coordinate based on a unique pixel location within the image raster content of the first image; and transmitting, without information indicative of the geographic location depicted, a second of the images for a second of the work regions to the operator user device, wherein the first and second work regions are not geographically contiguous.