Congratulations to Agnitio S.L. for being named a winner in the 2011 Global Security Challenge, a competition that is “powered by” OmniCompete, chartered by the London Business School. The prize brings with it an award of $300,000 and the sort of high-profile promotion that enhances recognition of the entire voice recognition community.
As a winner in the 6th Global Security Challenge, Agnitio joins businesses like TenCube, a 2007 GSC regional finalist, acquired by McAfee for $10.6 million and Kromek, which raised $18.9 million in investment after winning the 2009 GSC. Safend, the 2010 GSC finalist, was bought by Wave Systems in September for $12.8 million.
Special Early Bird Pricing for the first 30 people to register for Voice Biometrics Conference New York, April 3rd & 4th, 2012!
Opus Research will convene Voice Biometrics Conference New York, April 3rd – 4th, 2012. In this, our seventh event in four years, we’re very pleased to showcase an ever-expanding set of current solutions and future opportunities for voice biometrics to support speaker identification and verification around the world. Enrolled voiceprints already exceeds 6 million, and future growth is exponential as voice biometric-based solutions support trusted commerce for banks, insurance companies, government agencies, telecommunications firms and mobile subscribers around the world.
VBC New York will be held at the Hyatt Regency Jersey City on the Hudson.
The first 30 people to register for Voice Biometric Conference New York can register for $299.00 That’s over half off the full conference rate of 699.00. Use registration code, ‘earlyvbc’ to receive the special rate.
In early October, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a broad patent to Bank of America covering “A method for conducting a financial transaction can be used by a person using a mobile device to conduct the transaction.” The claims associated with the patent include description of processes that support many of the guidelines issued by the FFIEC (Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council) in 2005 regarding strong multifactor authentication of Internet-based transactions. Chief among those recommendations, which were updated in a supplement that was issued in June 2011, was the need for constant risk assessment and application of strong authentication for high-risk transactions.
The seven inventors at BofA applied for their patent in December 2007. The claims that resonate strongly with the FFIEC guidelines include a layered approach to authentication. The document defines a hierarchy of required authentication levels based on the characteristics of the person using the device and the level of risk associated with a given transaction. The patent also specifies mobile devices that are equipped with hardware, software or sensors that can read biometric information about the person in possession of the phone or other mobile device.
That biometric information can include fingerprint information, voice validation information, facial recognition information, and iris scan information. It can be invoked based on the level of risk assigned to a particular transaction or information query on a device that can be “configured to be used in connection with the payment card to complete the financial transaction, wherein the recognition feature recognizes the payment card.”
Many of these claimed methods seem to describe what people are already doing as smartphones morph into electronic wallets. But what seems to be most interesting (if not “unique and unobvious”) is explicit inclusion of biometric information in the authentication process that takes place at the point of sale when a mobile device is used. Whether assigning intellectual property rights regarding this activity to the Bank of America serves to accelerate or put a chill on future deployments is a mystery. Still it shows that one of the largest commercial bank in the U.S. recognizes that biometric information is vital to strong, multi-layered and multi-factor mobile authentication.
Gazprombank’s Investment in STC/SpeechPro Marks Vote of Confidence in Voice Biometrics
In a release issued by Speech Technology Center/Speechpro in September, it was revealed that Gazprombank, the third largest bank in central and eastern Europe, had become a major shareholder in Speech Technology Center/SpeechPro. Other, unconfirmed, sources reported that the purchase represented the stake in STC owned by Quadriga Capital, which reportedly invested $1 million in STC in 2003.
The size of Gazprombank’s investment has not been revealed, but sources say that the multiple over STC’s EBITDA reflects expectation for high revenue growth for STC’s core technologies and expertise, which include acoustic processing, automated speech recognition, voice biometrics along with attendant application software and professional services.
VoxGen and MyDex are Recruiting Qualified Businesses for Enhanced Authentication Project
As posted here last May, VoxGen and MyDex received a grant to develop and test a system that employs voice biometrics to promote strong, trusted authentication in contact centers. Now the companies are moving the project to its next phase by recruiting participation from one or more businesses who want to gain a better understanding of how their customers want to carry on commercial conversations across multiple channels.
The companies are looking for “consumer-facing organisations that typically handle five million or more customer contacts per year, have customer authentication requirements, and currently operate a cross-channel customer service strategy. The incentive to participate will be to gain first-hand experience with voice biometric-based authentication systems and to take part in the development of a multi-channel authentication strategy. Companies are expected to get their applications in to Pierce Buckley at VoxGen before October 28th.
Voice Innovate’s SecureLogin Makes Voice a Third Factor to Complement SecureID Tokens
Ottawa-based Voice Innovate Corp. reports that SecureLogin is now “Partner Certified” by RSA. As described in this product page, SecureLogin makes voice into a third factor for authenticating the person in possession of the popular RSA SecureID hard token. Enrollment, through a specified telephone number to an IVR system, is designed to associate a person’s voiceprint with a specific physical token. After enrolling, protected users use the SecureID token as they normally would, with a username, password and one-time code.
The system then originates a phone call to a preregistered phone number or prompt the user to call an authentication number if necessary. The token holder is prompted to speak a series of five digits (generated randomly to prevent replay attacks). The use of voice as a third factor prevents access to applications or networks by an imposter, even if the key-fob has been lost or stolen. It leverages a company’s investment in the RSA infrastructure, while reducing the likelihood of “false accepts” that might arise when malicious folks find a lost token.
This is the third product from Voice Innovate to achieve Partner Certification.
Multimodal authentication, including voiceprints, figures prominently in an initiative for New Zealand Post (a private company that acts as the country’s postal service) to offer a “password and digital photo service through its storefronts (aka post offices). The service is being trialed at 14 PostShop Kiwibank stores across the country as the next step in providing fuller identity verification for customers. The stores are listed in this article.
The core technology is from Daon, an identity assurance software provider with offices in Washington DC, New York, Canberra, Singapore, London and Dublin. According to reports it is capable of taking and storing digital photos, as well as capturing fingerprints and voice samples for identification purposes. The company also reports that it has won a major contract with the New Zealand Department of Labour to support the Immigration Biometrics Evaluation contract, which will collect, store and match finger and face biometric data using fixed, portable and handheld biometric capture stations.
A report by Lydia Polgreen in The New York Times describes the initiatives by the government of India to build a database of biometric data on 1.2 billion identities, keyed to a 12-digit universal identification number. The Indian government has dispatched “a small team of elite bureaucrats” to build the database. According to a press release issued in July, 2010, Daon’s IdentityX platform is at the core of India’s UID program.
Neither voice biometrics, nor voiceprints are mentioned in the context of India’s UID initiative. But the platform is designed to support multiple biometric factors and, in the past, the company has announced partnerships with biometric engine providers, including Agnitio for voice biometric identification.
South by Southwest (SxSW) is approaching and this year I’d like to make sure that voice biometrics are well represented. Isaac Chapa of CSIdentity and I will take the stage to describe the core technologies and provide answers to the most often heard questions on the topic of voice biometrics-based solutions and multimodal authentication. I’ve been giving presentations about using voiceprints to promote trusted communications to a wide variety of audiences, ranging from mobile app developers to Chief Security Officers from around the world.
Interest follows awareness, as diverse audiences begin to understand the nature of the technology, the range of solutions and the problems they solve. It’s time to take our act to Austin.
But we need your help. Selection of speakers is a democratic process and everyone gets to vote. This page in the “SxSW PanelPicker” site gives you an opportunity to vote us in. You will be prompted to log-in or create an account, but the process is fairly quick. It’s time to take the voice biometrics message to a broader audience. You can help.
Enhancing your credit union’s cool factor with biometrics: Finivation’s Brian Bodell explains… from CUbroadcast on Vimeo.
Click on the link above to view an interview of Finivation’s CEO Brian Bodell by Mike Lawson at CU Broadcast.
Hallelujah! “DevNation” has started to understand and appreciate voice biometric authentication. The latest example comes from America’s heartland – Lawrence, KS – where a company called Disruptive Technologies has cobbled together a solution will enable bloggers on the WordPress platform to use voiceprints, rather than passwords to gain access to their accounts.
Disruptive has gone further by taking on the three-step process of (1) gaining access to VoiceVault’s API for cloud-based authentication, (2) leveraging Voxeo’s Tropo platform to house a library of scripts that support enrollment of voiceprints and subsequent voice-based authentication and finally (3) as a use case that many bloggers can understand, Disruptive built a mechanism for bloggers using WordPress to have visitors enroll their voiceprints as a replacement for passwords.
True to its name, Disruptive has loaded its library of (php-based) scripts to the code sharing platform GitHub. This means that WordPress mavens can install the voice authentication routines as a WordPress “plug-in.” It doesn’t solve many of the issues involved with getting people to register their voiceprints. But it’s a start toward expanding voice biometrics’ footprint.
