Speech Technology Voice Biometrics Webinar - Summary

This afternoon, Speech Technology hosted a voice biometrics webinar titled “How Verifying Your Customer’s Identity Can Save You Money.” The panelists were: Judith Markowitz (Consultant), Chuck Buffum (Nuance), William Morrow (CSIdentity) and Paul Heirendt (Trade Harbor). The moderator was David Myron (Speech Technology).

Judith Markowitz began the session with a review of voice biometrics basics. According to her, organizations deploy voice biometrics to:

• Combat identity theft and other fraud
• Protect personal data - privacy
• Comply with regulations
• Enhance convenience and simplify the authentication process

Judith also mentioned that voice biometrics has been deployed in the following sectors: financial services, healthcare, distance learning, telecom, transportation and government.

Chuck Buffum next presented an interesting overview of voice biometrics metrics. He discussed business, solution and technology metrics. Business metrics measure reduced operating expenses, improved customer experience/satisfaction and improved security. Solution metrics include: automated authentication rate, security rate (1 – imposter rate), offer acceptance rate, enrollment success rate, and re-use rate (opposite of opt-out after enrollment). Technology metrics include: false reject, false accept and enrollment success rate.

Chuck also discussed some of the factors that influence voice biometrics performance, including: richness of voice enrollment (i.e., broad and deep phonetic coverage), quality of audio sample (e.g., signal noise ratio) and environmental characteristics (e.g., background noise).

William Morrow stressed the growing rate of identity theft and fraud as a driver for deploying voice biometrics. From 2007 to 2009, there was a 37% increase in the number of victims. He said that the cost of identity fraud in 2009, in the U.S., was $54 billion. William ended by presenting a brief case study about the use of voice biometrics to ensure academic integrity for distance learning company “I DRIVE SAFELY” (IDS).

The final panelist, Paul Heirendt presented an overview of TradeHarbor’s voice biometrics product (VoiceSignatureService(SM)). He also addressed many of the benefits that organizations can realize by deploying voice biometrics.

When the presentations were over, the panelists addressed questions submitted by the participants.

The archived webinar should be available for viewing on Speech Technology’s Website.