Enhancing national security with AI-powered machine translation
6 mins
In an era where countries are increasingly coming together to address shared security challenges through joint military, defense, and intelligence operations, access to multilingual content is not an option, it is mission-critical.
However, the limited availability of translators and interpreters can lead to misunderstandings and communication breakdowns. Equally, intelligence agencies must rapidly triage vast amounts of multilingual data, whether from public sources such as social media and news sites, or from intercepted communications such as radio or satellite transmissions. The information is passed along to non-linguist analysts to enhance situational awareness and detect threats, including cyber threats.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming national security worldwide. As governments recognize its potential to enhance their security capabilities and streamline operations, AI is becoming the driving force behind applications from predictive analytics to threat detection.
Linguistic AI such as neural machine translation is enabling governments to rapidly analyze vast quantities of multilingual intelligence and to communicate with allied forces in real time.
Applications of machine translation in national security
Given the time and cost needed to process the same amount of information using traditional translation methods, it is unsurprising that neural machine translation has become deeply ingrained in key processes for national security. By translating training materials, military doctrine, logistical information and other key documents, allies can align their strategies and work together more effectively.
Intelligence gathering
Machine translation (MT) plays a significant role in open-source intelligence (OSINT) and signals intelligence (SIGINT) by enabling governments to monitor incoming foreign-language information in real time.
Analyzing documentation and evidence at scale
By facilitating rapid analysis of large amounts of foreign-language content, machine translation is game-changing in eDiscovery and mobile and digital forensics. Beyond providing instant translation into a language the analysts can understand, a comprehensive AI-powered MT solution can help prioritize the most relevant content for further analysis or identify which documents to send for human translation. For example, it may generate automatic summaries or help categorize multilingual data by topic, making it easier to search otherwise unwieldy datasets. When combined with natural language processing techniques like word embeddings, MT allows for searches across multiple languages, identifying relevant documents even when the search terms are in a different language.
Communication between allies
Countries are increasingly coming together to address shared security challenges through joint military operations. However, the limited availability of translators and interpreters often leads to misunderstandings and communication breakdowns. This is where machine translation can step in to fill the gap.
MT facilitates smoother collaboration between allied forces during joint operations and exercises through speech-to-speech translation, as well as offering instant document translation. By translating training materials, military doctrine, logistical information and other key documents, allies can align their strategies and work together more effectively.
When embedded into an instant messaging system, MT can translate chat communications between personnel in real time. For example, if a US Army soldier types a message in English, their South Korean counterpart receives it in Korean – and vice versa.
What to look for in an MT solution
There are many MT solutions available today, but not all of them are suitable for government use. The right solution will not only accelerate the translation and analysis of multilingual data, but also offer security, adaptability and extensibility.
Speed and scalability
A government MT solution must be capable of processing large volumes of text quickly. Look for a solution with high throughput and low latency, along with parallel processing support for handling multiple translation requests simultaneously.
To manage increasing workloads without losing performance, the system should be capable of upgrading or adding new machines, with the elasticity to scale resources up or down as needed. It should also have the flexibility to add new languages and dialects as new threats emerge.
Security and data compliance
Basic machine translation in the cloud will not suffice. The US military for example, has strict cybersecurity requirements and a comprehensive authority to operate (ATO) process.
Given the sensitive nature of the data it will be processing, your MT solution must be secure by design and allow for on-premises deployment options.
To minimize the risk of data breaches and to enhance compliance with regulations such as GDPR, it should have stringent controls for data management, access and storage. This includes role-based access control to restrict access to authorized users only, and data handling practices that minimize retention, ensuring content is not stored longer than necessary.
A secure architecture will also employ strict data encryption protocols to protect data in transit and at rest, along with secure HTTPS connections and robust authentication mechanisms to maintain API security.
Adaptability
Today, the best MT solutions are based on adaptable, self-improving AI models. To minimize the need for manual post-editing, you need a model that can be fine-tuned for your specific domains and terminologies. Choose one that learns from previous translations to improve future quality, as well as incorporating context-aware algorithms that adapt translations in real time. Feedback from your post-editors is an invaluable resource, so this should also be captured by the solution to ensure continuous improvement.
Integrations with other tools
For a government MT solution to be truly effective and time-saving, it must integrate seamlessly with eDiscovery and forensic software. These integrations make it possible to not only translate but also search, review and analyze large volumes of legal and regulatory documents from multiple sources during investigations.
If you need to identify patterns and connections in complex multilingual datasets, choose an MT solution that integrates with data analysis tools. To make it easy to catalogue, store and retrieve documents and evidence, choose one that integrates with legal case management systems and digital evidence management systems.
What to look for in a vendor: ongoing support and customization
The vendor you choose is just as important as the solution. Look for a provider who offers robust data security, scalability and reliable uptime guarantees.
It’s particularly important for any government solution to receive comprehensive ongoing support to keep the system up to date and deal with any issues that may arise. The ideal vendor will offer training for your users and assistance with any customizations, such as fine-tuning the AI model. Choosing the right vendor will go a long way to ensuring a secure, stable solution that provides the greatest return on your investment.
Protect your security with Language Weaver
Our machine translation solution, Language Weaver, has a proven track record of delivering results in both intelligence gathering and military applications.
With a performance of up to 500,000+ words per minute and 3,000+ language combinations, Language Weaver processes data with the speed that national security demands. It can be customized to your needs – our leading linguistic AI technology allows you to train and adapt the solution for your requirements, and the platform integrates with some of the most popular eDiscovery and forensic solutions.
Finally, Language Weaver offers you a choice of on-premises, cloud or hybrid hosting. Its flexible deployment options and secure-by-design infrastructure, together with our status as a SAM-certified vendor, make Language Weaver a safe choice for government applications.