Speech Technology Center officially announced its voice biometrics platform is being used by Mexican law enforcement agencies. The voice identification system is used to match an “unknown” voice sample to a database of “known” voiceprints to track down criminals and is being used by more than 250 local police departments in all 32 Mexican states.
The platform can compare short utterances recorded by various recording channels (microphone, land-line, GSM, VOIP) regardless of the gender, age, language or an accent of the speaker.
At last May’s Voice Biometrics Conference, Speech Technology Center outlined the Mexican deployment and described it as the largest known speaker identification project to date. For the last seven years, STC has been working with Mexican law enforcement agencies in supplying forensic technologies and the addition of voice biometrics for speaker identification seemed a logical extension.
As mentioned in today’s announcement, STC has high hopes for the technology: “Growing demand for voice biometrics in general and voice-based identification in particular signals an emergence of a new market segment with a potential to grow to a [half billion dollar] industry.”
Targeting the growing ranks of iPhone and iPad users, PerSay has announced that its VocalPassword functionality has been modified to allow app developers to include voice authentication with “minimal resources.” By adding voice biometrics to traditional methods of authentication, including login IDs and passwords, the new capability enables a multi-factor authentication.
The additional layer of security can provide app users with a “sleek and innovate authentication experience,” says Almog Aley-Raz, CEO of PerSay in the press release. The company is touting the solution for applications such as mobile banking, social networks, payment services and membership clubs.
PerSay is not alone in developing a voice biometric solution for iPhone. VoiceSafe, created by Voice Trust, is an application to securely store personal information on an iPhone. As well, Palo Alto, CA-based SecuriMobile offers a platform to manage large deployments of voice biometric-enabled mobile phones with support for BlackBerry, iPhone, Android smartphones.
The true business benefits in electronic signatures are expediting the process in how contracts, agreements, and documents are signed and completed, solidifying each party’s consent. DocuSign, providers of digital signature solutions, have built an on-demand service to “empower” businesses large and small to operate faster and more efficiently.
Recently, DocuSign announced a partnership to integrate Authentify’s out-of-band voice authentication into the company’s electronic document signature service. According to the announcement, the authentication option strengthens the signature process by creating a biometric voiceprint and automating a defensible audit trail.
“It’s a very natural extension of our electronic signature process,” said Tom Gonser, DocuSign founder and chief strategy officer in a statement. “The synchronization of the Web and telephony process requires users to interact simultaneously during the signing engagement.”
The authentication option is available now with the DocuSign Spring ’10 release.
The growing market for home-based virtual agents gives contact center service providers flexibilities in staffing – for instance, to shoulder seasonal call spikes – while still maintaining high levels of customer service with an educated and motivated workforce. But one concern with such a highly distributed at-home agent solution is to make sure the person checking in for work is the actual person contracted with the service provider.
To ensure higher levels of security, West Corporation has purchased Anakam’s comprehensive suite of products, including voice biometrics, to provide authentication mechanisms in verifying the identity of home-based agents. West at Home, with more than 15,000 virtual agents, plans to use the “Anakam Identity Suite” to provide strong authentication of virtual private networks (VPN) between home-based agents and their platform. The product suite enhances West at Home’s current two-factor authentication by offering customers the ability to deliver a one-time passcode via phone, email or voice biometrics.
The partnership with Anakam – whose roster of customers include government and healthcare organizations utilizing identity proofing and verification technologies – underscores West Corporation’s commitment to provide secure, multi-channel communications. While the announced partnership focuses on the authentication process of internal West at Home agents, the company says the deployment will expand over time to include customer and client-facing solutions.
Truveo Uses Speaker Identification to Help Users Find Their Favorite Celebrities on Video
After a year of relative quiet, the video search destination site Truveo is launching a new service that uses speaker identification technologies to help its users find their favorite celebrities on camera. Facebook members can access the app here; where you’ll see how the combination of a voice biometrics, video search and social networking creates the ultimate resource for a person who wants to home in on videos that should interest them – either because they feature their favorite stars, politicians or personalities, or because their “friends” have recently viewed them, as well as the ability to have Facebook notify a user when it has discovered a relevant video clip.
You can watch a five minute video demonstration of the service here.
Truveo was acquired by AOL back in 2006 and had a major “relaunch” in April of 2009, as discussed by Opus Research’s Greg Sterling in this article in Search Engine Land. It has been locked in competition with the likes of Blinkx, Google Video and to some extent YouTube while, at the same time, it has powered the video search capabilities of several other branded Web sites. Bringing the precision of speaker identification into the video search and discovery realm is a nice touch that should result in a better user experience as video expands into social networking and mobile realms.
I wanted to alert readers to an interesting discussion on the design and architecture considerations for voice authentication on smartphones in a LinkedIn community group focused on voice biometrics. Valene Skerpac, president of iBiometrics, has outlined several questions about the technology for smartphones including: Where should voice verification signal processing – matching – decision processing be performed? And should all the voice verification processing be performed centrally like all other telephony voice verification?
Given the explosive growth in smartphone adoption and related uptake in mobile banking, developing and defining the authentication architecture that will prevail on handsets is a process yet to be determined. Join the discussion on LinkedIn here.
Opus Research has released its latest report and forecast of voice biometric technologies and solutions: “Voice Biometrics 2010: A Transformative Year for Voice-Based Authentication. Below is a brief excerpt that addresses the role of voice biometric technologies in multi-factor authentication, mobile settings, and anonymous authentication for social media networks. At Opus Research’s Voice Biometrics Conference 2010, Brent Williams, CTO of multifactor authentication specialist Anakam, observed that voice biometrics solutions providers had, perhaps, done themselves a disservice by concentrating so heavily on financial services. When the worldwide financial chill hit all banks, voice-based authentication projects were the unintentional victims. By contrast, Williams noted, his company remains very bullish on the potential for voice authentication to play an important role in supporting multifactor authentication requirements for truly large scale deployments, where people have to have great confidence in remote authentication. Anakam has several opportunities in mind in areas where his company has had success: authenticating “extremely large scale user-bases for consumer, patient, and citizen-facing applications in e-health, e-government, e-banking, and e-commerce.” Connecting the Dots For each of them, Voice Biometrics has the potential to be a tremendous differentiator. As noted earlier in this paper, it can serve as the “something you are,” but it can also provide the sort of “liveness testing” that is becoming tremendously important in both fraud prevention and promotion of ecommerce. The failure of solutions providers to reach high visibility and critical mass is largely a problem of marketing, not technology. To its credit, the core biometric engines and application logic is on a par with alternative techniques for keeping imposters at bay and, as we frequently point out, voice biometrics is largely superior of authenticating users (as opposed to their devices) and detecting real-time speaker changes. “Strong authentication” will be required to give the general public the confidence to carry out everyday activities online or over their wireless devices in a way that protects their privacy and prevents identity theft. In a mobile setting (as well as instances that can be supported by “out-of-band” or outbound, phone-based authentication) voice-based verification should be positioned as the only way that a person (or enterprise) can be assured that the person on the other side of a transaction is alive, well and, indeed, the person he or she claims to be. Finally, while it may appear counter-intuitive, voice biometrics — which we have argued to be the “most personal of authentication technologies” — will find its greatest value as a supporter of “anonymous authentication.” In well-designed implementations, voiceprints are not associated directly with personal information of any sort. They are merely part of a mechanism that provides confidence that callers or customers are, indeed, who they claim to be. As the follies of Facebook and other social networks raise attention about privacy protection in cyberspace, the availability of this highly portable and personal, yet anonymous, authentication technique will rise in importance.
For core technology providers, success is predicated on working with partners in risk-based authentication, like Anakam (which offers a complete solution of its own), as well as vertical specialists in areas like credit reporting, like Experian, TransUnion, Equifax or Acxiom. This means that success for the technology will depend largely on how well voice biometric specialists can work with, interface to and internetwork across multiple service providers.
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With more than five million registered voiceprints around the globe, it appears that voice biometric-based solutions are poised to assume the pivotal role of user authentication to support higher levels of trust among users of mobile apps, remote monitoring, distance learning, e-medicine, e-government and a host of other social activities or transactions.
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Voice Biometrics Conference – May 4-5, 2010
Hyatt Regency Jersey City
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Agenda & Presentations
Top analysts, industry experts, implementers and vendors met in Jersey City with keynote presentations and panel sessions discussing business opportunities, strategies and applications, deployment options, and what’s next for voice biometrics.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
1:00 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.
Welcome: The Expanding Ecosystem for Voice Biometrics – This session defines the business problem that voice biometrics and speaker verification is trying to solve — from access control to transaction authorization. Understand why voice biometric solutions are on the technology “roadmaps” of banks, communications carriers, healthcare providers, mobile operators, and government agencies.
Speakers:
Dan Miller, Senior Analyst, Opus Research
Derek Top, Director of Research, Opus Research
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1:45 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.
Voice Biometrics in the Customer Contact Center – In call centers, voice biometrics has the potential of improving the customer experience while simultaneously hardening authentication processes over the phone. Yet the uptake of the technology, thus far, has been modest at best. In this presentation, EIG will explore voice biometric implementations from the contact center point-of-view, the differing industry segments, and how customers’ experience and expectations of voice verification contrast with the leading business drivers.
Speaker:
David Attwater, Senior Scientist, EIG
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2:45 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. – Break
3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Great Debates – Experts debate the variables in deployment strategies, including the issues and critical design decisions that all prospective implementers will have to tackle.
- Authentication Strategies: Text Dependent vs. Text Independent
- Security vs. Convenience: Myths and Trade-Offs
- Standards and Compliance: Fuel or Friction?
Speakers:
Ariel Freidenberg, Executive VP, Global Sales & Business Development, PerSay
Julia Webb, EVP, Sales and Marketing, VoiceVault
Avery Glasser, Independent Consultant
Clive Summerfield, CEO, Auraya Systems
4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Case Studies: Distance Learning & Social Services – This session includes two large customer-facing voice verification deployments: I DRIVE SAFELY utilizes voice biometrics to enroll students and enforce academic integrity for its online drivers’ education program; Australian social services agency Centrelink has deployed a speaker verification system to authenticate access to welfare services
Speaker:
Ian Bonewitz, Project Manager, I DRIVE SAFELY
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Dave Wright, Technical Manager Speech Solutions, Centrelink
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Chuck Buffum, VP, Caller Authentication Solutions, Nuance
Bill Morrow, Chairman & CEO, CSIdentity Corporation
5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Voice Biometrics Conference Networking Reception – Meet the vendors, solution providers and customers who are pioneering voice biometrics as enabling technologies.
Sponsored by CSIdentity
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
9:00 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.
Keynote Case Study: Bank Leumi – To thwart identity theft attacks, Bank Leumi deployed a real-time fraudster detection solution to evaluate every call coming into the contact center against the customer’s voiceprint. The Israeli bank, with more than 12,000 employees, has successfully implemented text-dependent and text-independent solutions for customer authentication, password reset, and fraudster detection.
Speaker:
Sasson Mordechay – SVP, Operations and Communications, Bank Leumi
View Presentation
9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.
Keynote Panel: T-Mobile and Bell Canada – Voice verification implementations across the globe have succeeded in streamlining the customer authentication process in the call center to help reduce operational costs while simultaneously improving the customer experience and safeguarding consumer privacy. This session features deployments from leading telecommunications providers: Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile and Bell Canada.
Speakers:
Daniel Hendling, International Program Manager, Deutsche Telekom AG
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Fred MacKenzie, Senior Business Solutions Advisor, Bell Canada
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10:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. – Break
11:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Panel: Opportunities in Mobile Authentication – The inevitable growth of mobile commerce relies on improved security of mobile transactions. Voice biometrics has the potential to provide inexpensive, accurate user authentication. This panel will discuss mobile applications to support payment authorizations, protecting information access, and overcoming the challenges of deploying across multiple mobile platforms.
Speakers:
Douwe Mik, Founder & CEO, IdentForReal
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Nick Ogden, CEO, Voice Commerce Group
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Bertrand Damiba, President and Co-Founder, SecuriMobile
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11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Panel: Data Security and Information Services – The largest providers of consumer credit services are currently exploring voice verification as a way to complement and expand current authentication solutions. In this session, information service providers address the challenges and opportunities for identity verification and how to balance the requirements of secure authentication with improved customer care.
Speakers:
Dan Elvester, Director of Business Development, Experian
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Kolin Whitley, VP Fraud Solutions, TransUnion
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12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. – Lunch
1:30 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.
Case Study: Atos Origin Service Desk – Atos Origin, a leading international IT services provider, is deploying a password reset application to all its UK offices utilizing voice biometrics. The full-scale deployment follows a rigorous pilot project (launched May 2009) that helped define the business case, overcame technical and implementation challenges, and transformed the raw technology to a complete end-to-end solution. Atos Origin will show how a managed services approach to voice-based authentication works across multiple technology platforms.
Speakers:
Mike Matthews, UK Service Desk Product Manager, Atos Origin
Surinder Singh, VP Global Sales & Marketing, Leading Software
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2:15 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Panel: Seeding the Cloud – Authentication as a Service – A number of authentication solutions are implemented in multi-tenant environments and offered on-demand. In this session, leading voice hosting service providers join voice-based authentication specialists to describe recent implementations, including lessons learned, future prospects and targeting the small- to medium-sized enterprise market.
Speakers:
Brian Eastley, Director, Business Development for Hosted Solutions,Convergys
Dan York, Director of Conversations, Voxeo
Paul Heirendt, President and CEO, TradeHarbor
3:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. – Break
3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Case Study: Speaker Identification and Law Enforcement – Speaker identification – i.e. matching an “unknown” voice sample to a database of “known” voiceprints – is a fast-growing segment of the biometric market. Such solutions can be used to track down criminals and support prosecutions. In this session, hear how a North American law enforcement agency deployed one of the largest known voice ID projects to date identifying key technical and business parameters necessary to implement the solution.
Speaker:
Alexey Khitrov, President, SpeechPro, Inc.
4:00 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.
Preparing Your Organization for Multifactor Authentication – In this panel, you will hear from the broader community of solutions providers, spanning security, customer service, UI specialists and risk management, in discussing the reality for voice biometrics to enhance or displace current modes of authentication (PINs/password, tokens, KBA). Topics include proving the business case, eliminating fraud, testing, and implementing across multiple channels.
Speakers:
Brent Williams, Chief Technology Officer, Anakam, Inc.
Chuck Buffum, VP, Caller Authentication Solutions, Nuance
Javier Cano Brabezo – Business Consultant, AGNITIO
Bill Morrow, Chairman & CEO, CSIdentity Corporation
As a third-party analyst firm, we at Opus Research have chronicled the many business benefits of speaker verification and voice biometrics: reduced operational costs and agent handling; customer convenience; reduced fraud loss; accurate, remote mobile authentication; internal IT help desk savings; low barriers to entry with little upfront capital expenditures; etc.
Yet despite these real and perceived business advantages, one of the mystifying aspects of the voice biometrics “industry” is the lack of large, public-facing deployments. In this video, Chuck Buffum, VP of Authentication Solutions for Nuance Communications, speaks to the slow trend of adoption and talks about finding early adopters of voice biometrics for customer care.
Of course, this topic and many others – including case studies from Bell Canada, T-Mobile, Bank Leumi, I DRIVE SAFELY, Atos Origin, the federal government of Mexico, and more – will be showcased at the upcoming Voice Biometrics Conference 2010 (May 4-5, Hyatt Regency Jersey City).
