Complete Guide to Smartphone Biometric Authentication (Fingerprint, Iris, Voice, Face) (Dignited)

Complete Guide to Smartphone Biometric Authentication (Fingerprint, Iris, Voice, Face).

Happy New Year!

Wishing all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2012!

Let's see if IBM's biometrics predictions come to fruition.

Interesting Article about Biometrics

Click here to read the article 'Is Biometrics The Answer To The Authentication Question?'

Opus Research to Convene Voice Biometrics Conference in Amsterdam

On March 23-24, 2011, Opus Research will convene the sixth Voice Biometric Conference in Amsterdam NL. According to Opus Research, this year’s conference will "showcase the ever-expanding set of present solutions and future opportunities for voice biometrics to support authentication for mobile carriers and contact center operators at banks, insurance companies, government agencies and telecommunications firms, as well as identification opportunities and other forensic applications for law enforcement agencies around the world."

Click here for information about the conference.

Nuance Acquires PerSay

PerSay, long recognized as one of the leaders in the voice biometrics space, was acquired by Nuance Communications, Inc. late last year. In an article on tmcnet.com, Chuck Buffum, Vice President of Authentication for Nuance is quoted as saying “PerSay’s voice biometrics products are currently in use across a range of applications, including remote transactions via contact centers and the Internet, password reset, offender monitoring, voice mining, and time and attendance. Together, the companies can accelerate the growth and adoption of the emerging voice biometrics market segment.”

I wish Almog, Ariel and the rest of the PerSay team the best of luck!

Another One Bites the Dust

As we end 2010, another voice biometrics vendor has ridden off into the sunset. According to a press release, Ivrnet, Inc., a Canadian communications company, has acquired Diaphonic's voice biometrics software at "minimal cost." The press release goes on to say that Ivrnet plans to "fully integrate the voice biometric software into their entire line of speech products, with an aggressive marketing campaign set to begin in March 2011."

I'm afraid that this news does not bode well for the voice biometrics industry.

Citibank to Roll Out Voice Biometrics in Australia

According to an October 15, 2010 article in zdnetasia.com, Citibank Australia is planning to roll out voice biometrics for identification to select early adopters.

Citibank Australia CEO Roy Gori stated "I think the next step in the evolution of security is voice biometrics. A person's voiceprint is more accurate than their fingerprint, iris or any other means of identification."

According to Gor, implementing voice biometrics would save Citibank Australia a lot of time and money, because it would cut out the traditional asking of questions for identification. He also stated that the next step after testing is completed is to get people to register and agree to it. Trials began six weeks in August, and early adopters could be using the system by the beginning of 2011.

Voice Biometrics Helps Uncover Terror Plot in Europe

According to an October 5 item from the Associated Press,"the British eavesdropping agency GCHQ deployed voice identification software to help uncover the plot that officials say has targeted Germany, Britain and France." The article goes on to say that voice biometrics has played a role thwarting other terror plots in the past.

Voice biometrics experts believe that the technology has strong potential for streamlining intelligence operations. For example, both the U.S. and British intelligence gather huge amounts of electronic eavesdropping data. Persay's CEO, Almog Aley-Raz offered that "using voice biometrics could allow officials to scan a large number of phone conversations for several suspects' voices."

Voice biometrics may not be perfect (i.e., subject to background noise, etc.) but it has proven to be a valuable tool in the ongoing war on terror.

VoiceVault Offers Voice Biometrics Smartphone Developer Program

A September 8 item on TMCnet.com announced that VoiceVault is now offering a voice biometric Smartphone Developer Program for VoiceVault Enterprise.

According to the article, the program includes several tools and resources that enable developers to design voice biometric-enabled smartphone applications. VoiceVault offers support to various smartphone platforms, including iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

Lee Cottle, Global Executive Vice President at VoiceVault, said that “smartphone users expect robust security and ease of use as a matter of course, and voice biometrics is a key technology to deliver this.” VoiceVault currently offers its VoiceVault Enterprise voice biometric enrollment, authentication, and signature components through 3G or WiFi networks, but has plans to provide an embedded on-device capability as well.

ANSI Standard for Voice Biometrics

An item on SpeechTechMag.com indicates that "the American National Standards Institute has published INCITS 456: Speaker Recognition Format for Raw Data Interchange (SIVR-1), a standard governing the type and format of data that should be included with shared audio files used for speaker identification and verification." Judith Markowitz, president of J. Markowitz Consultants is the editor of the standard, which was 4 years in the making.

The types of data to be included with the file are: the bandwidth used to make the recording; date and time of the recording; type of channel that was used to record the data, such as a wireless or landline phone; information about the speaker, such as gender, age, language, and accent; the input device used; security used, such as the type of encryption; and the sampling rate. According to the article, the format is intended to be vendor-neutral.

It should be noted that, although the standard is not mandatory, it can be very useful to organizations such as military, intelligence and law enforcement that often share data about potential threats.

Competition for Authenticating Mobile Phones via Biometrics Heats Up

An August 14 item on ThirdFactor.com announced that Animetrics has released new facial recognition authentication on certain mobile phones.

According to the article, “the service, called FaceR CredentialME, is available on devices using the Android, Windows Mobile and RIM operating systems on the Sprint 3G or 4G networks and was launched in conjunction with Troy Security Solutions, a mobile products and solutions provider.”

“The biometric service allows a user to authenticate their identity via unique characteristics in their face recorded from the phone’s embedded camera for anything such as basic online services or corporate specific services. Further, the biometric authentication can be used to entirely replace standard login methods or layered on top of them as a second factor of authentication.”

This announcement comes on the heels of PerSay’s introduction of a voice biometrics solution for iPhones and Bio-Key’s upcoming release of a fingerprint biometrics solution for mobile phones.

The race is on!

Voice Biometrics is in the Army Now!

According to an item in “Government Computer News”, the United States Army is developing a major biometrics depository – including voice. The biometrics information is captured from all foreign nationals, including local nationals and third-country nationals, who are eligible to access bases in areas of conflict.

The article describes the process as follows: “It starts with the person’s employer filling out a paper application, knowing what privileges they should have and whether they should be escorted or not. That goes into an automated system along with the person’s biometric information and gets vetted against databases in West Virginia, which includes the FBI database. So then that information — hit [or] no hit — gets fed back to somebody at the local base, because every local commander gets to decide who can or can’t come on his base. And based on that information, whether it’s innocuous or whether they think it shows a threat, as well as other sources of information, they make a decision whether to allow that person on base. If they say “yes,” then the person is badged with a card that looks a lot like a Common Access Card.”

When the person arrives at the base, their card is first checked to ensure validity. Their biometrics (sample) are then compared against the biometrics (base) stored on the card to ensure that the person is who they claim to be.

PerSay Delivers Voice Biometrics Solution for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch

According to a press release, PerSay’s VocalPassword™ voice biometrics functionality is now available for iPhone™, iPad™ and iPod Touch™ applications. The voice biometrics functionality, which interfaces with a VocalPassword™ web service interface, uses a simple spoken pass phrase which enables single / multi-factor voice-based authentication. By combining it with the device ID, and / or a password, a triple-factor authentication is enabled.

Almog Aley-Raz, PerSay’s CEO, stated “iPhone and iPad users are demanding friendly Apps that utilize the most advanced technology for enhanced experience. By eliminating keyboard use, as well as the need for auto-filling names and passwords which poses a security risk, the PerSay solution provides optimal usability with maximum protection. Sensitive enterprise and personal applications, including mobile banking, social networks, payment services, membership clubs, and many more, can now provide their users with a sleek and innovative, yet strong authentication experience.”

As an iPhone user, I’m looking forward to demoing PerSay’s application.

Missed Opportunity for Voice Biometrics to Secure Smartphones!?

Last week, there was an item on EnterpriseMobileToday titled “Smartphones to Get Biometric Identity Platform for Mobile Security". For a brief moment, I was excited about the prospect of voice biometrics playing a major role in this rapidly expanding market. Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed as soon as I started reading the article and learned that the biometric the title referred to was "fingerprint recognition".

Now I have nothing against fingers; I have ten of them myself. It’s just that voice biometrics seems like such a natural choice for a device that has a microphone and speaker. As a matter of fact, in March I blogged about the feasibility of securing smartphones with voice biometrics. This is a golden opportunity and I hope the voice biometrics industry is able to deliver a robust solution before it’s too late.

Old MacDonald Had a Farm…with Voice Biometrics

A recent article on TMCnet.com described how some farmers in India are using voice biometrics to manage contract farming without being physically present.

According to the item, “farmers make a call to their organization's central "Voice ERP" system and feed in information they want to share with tillers. The information gets stored in the database and gets converted into text. The system then generates an SMS, which is sent to the mobile phones of the tillers.” The article goes on to say that “farmers are provided unique identity codes to ensure only authorized people access an organization's Voice ERP database. For additional security, a voice biometrics check can also be performed.”

The "Voice ERP" system is provided by Uniphore Software Systems.

PerSay Wins 2010 Speech Industry Award

Congratulations to Persay for winning the 2010 Speech Industry Award for Speech Security. Other recipients in the category included: Leaders: Agnitio and Raytheon/BBN; Vendor Contender: Loquendo.

The Speech Industry Awards are handed out each year by Speech Technology magazine. According to the magazine's website, "recipients were determined through an extensive process and proprietary rating formula that involves collecting industry analyst and consultant reviews, financial and corporate information, product and functionality assessments, and scores based on their importance to current and potential customers."

PerSay Ltd., with offices in Tel-Aviv, Israel and New York, is a provider of voice biometrics products.

Tongueprints to verify identity?

An item in “Security World News” describes research being conducted at Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Biometrics Research Center on the use of tongue scanning to identify individuals. “The tongue shapes of different people are different, and thus the tongue can be used to tell different subjects (apart),” says Lei Zhang, assistant professor at the university.

Here’s the abstract of Professor Lei Zhang’s research paper:

“Biometrics, which use human physiological or behavioral features for personal identification, currently face the challenge of designing a secure biometric system that will accept only the legitimate presentation of the biometric identifiers without being fooled by the doctored or spoofed measurements that are input into the system. More biometric traits are required for improving the performance of authentication systems. In this paper, we present a new number for the biometrics family, i.e. tongueprint, which uses particularly interesting properties of the human tongue to base a technology for noninvasive biometric assessment. The tongue is a unique organ which can be stuck out of the mouth for inspection, whose appearance is amenable to examination with the aid of a machine vision system. Yet it is otherwise well protected in the mouth and difficult to be forged. Furthermore, the involuntary squirm of the tongue is not only a convincing proof that the subject is alive, but also a feature for recognition. That is to say, the tongue can present both static features and dynamic features for authentication. However, little work has hitherto been done on the tongue as a biometric identifier. In this work, we make use of a database of tongue images obtained over a long period to examine the performance of the tongueprint as a biometric identifier. Our research shows that tongueprint is a promising candidate for biometric identification and worthy of further research.”

What's next?

Warning! Crude “Voice Verification Process” used to Scam Businesses

An item out of Bakersfield, California (KERO 23) warns businesses of a new scam that uses a crude “electronic Voice Verification process.” Here’s how it works:

Let’s say you decide not to renew an existing contract (e.g., yellow pages advertising). The company calls you and asks you to confirm certain information, such as name, phone, etc., by providing “yes” and “no” answers to the questions. The company then claims that you answered “yes” to the terms of the renewal -- and will even play back a recording of you answering “yes” to the “renewal question.”

I can see this “process” being used to scam individuals as well. If you are a victim of this scam, immediately send a cancellation letter to the company. You may also want to contact the Better Business Bureau and Federal Trade Commission.

Voice Commerce Introduces Cloud-Based Voice Biometrics e-Commerce Platform

A June 15, 2010 item on infosecurity.com discusses the introduction of Voice Commerce’s cloud-based voice biometrics e-commerce platform.

According to the article, there are two components to the platform – retailer and consumer. The retailer system, known as On4, “allows retailers to instantly set up and run their online business (e.g., stock control, shipping management, etc.), processing transactions using voice biometrics to authenticate/authorize their online and mobile-based electronic payments.” On4 is linked in to the Voice Commerce Payment system.

The consumer system, known as VoicePay, “allows consumers to set up their own voice biometric (base voiceprint) as an authenticator for use over the phone or mobile phone. The idea is that, once a user has set up their authenticator, any VoicePay-enabled retailer can use the biometrics and authenticate the user by simply calling him or her (and comparing the sample voiceprint to the base voiceprint).”

You may recall that I wrote about a similar mobile shopping application back in March. Let the games begin!

Consumers Prefer Voice Above Other Biometrics

According to a Unisys study, cited in an article on the sourcesecurity.com Website, “the biometric measures ranked by consumer preference are: voice recognition (32%), fingerprints (27%), facial scan (20%), hand geometry (12%), and iris scan (10%). This ranking seems to confirm that people prefer convenience and familiarity when choosing a biometric technology. “

Voice biometrics compared to other biometrics is:

1) User-friendly - speaking is natural and requires no special effort
2) Cost effective - verification is accomplished via telephone or microphone
3) Convenient - enables remote verification of a person’s identity