IC wants sensors to evaluate personnel performance

Working in the intelligence community can be stressful. The IC's research arm wants to use sensors to evaluate how people respond to the demands of the job.

IARPA logo.

WHAT: An announcement that the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity will hold a Proposers' Day on Aug. 2 to provide information on a program that will use sensors to evaluate employee performance.

WHY: Working in the intelligence community can be psychologically demanding. IARPA, the IC's futuristic research arm, wants to use sensors to see if prospective and current employees are up to the job.

"Methods that enhance our ability to evaluate an individual's psychological drivers, cognitive abilities, and mental wellness and resilience" will make for a better IC workforce, the announcement states.

IARPA is tackling the challenge through a program called Multimodal Objective Sensing to Assess Individuals with Context (MOSAIC). Voluntary participants would wear or carry sensors that collect data as they go about their daily activities.

Research teams would likely test multimodal sensors to collect a "range of subject-focused and situational data," according to IARPA. The goal is to piece together "an integrated model of the subject, their behaviors, and the social and physical context."

An independent team will evaluate employees' performance against target benchmarks.

The announcement states that companies or individuals who want to offer their services must have appropriate privacy safeguards in place.

The MOSAIC program echoes broader government efforts to monitor security clearance holders on an ongoing basis.

Click here to read the announcement.