Patent ID: 7974411

Claim:
A method for protecting information in an audio file, comprising the steps of: obtaining an audio file, wherein obtaining an audio file is carried out by a module executing on a hardware processor; detecting semantic information in the audio file bearing one or more semantic segments in a speech signal, wherein the semantic information identifies each of the one or more segments containing information sought for protection and comprises a segment tag denoting nature of information in each segment containing information sought for protection, and wherein detecting information bearing one or more segments in a speech signal is carried out by a module executing on a hardware processor; encrypting the one or more segments containing information sought for protection by scrambling the one or more segments using a scrambling filter, wherein encrypting the one or more segments containing information sought for protection is based on the segment tag for each segment containing information sought for protection, wherein each segment tag corresponds to an encryption strength level, and wherein encrypting the information sought for protection is carried out by a module executing on a hardware processor; and selectively decrypting zero or more of the encrypted segments based on user access privilege, wherein user access privilege denotes the encryption strength level at and under which the user is permitted to decrypt, and wherein selectively decrypting zero or more of the encrypted segments is carried out by a module executing on a hardware processor.