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.

Voice Biometrics to Monitor Florida Home Health Providers

Sandata, LLC, a provider of IT solutions to the home health care industry, has announced the upcoming deployment of a voice biometrics system that will enable the Florida Medicaid program to verify that home health services were actually delivered to the recipient. The pilot, scheduled to begin July 1, 2010, will target home health providers in Miami-Dade County that participate in the Florida Medicaid program. According to Harold S. Blue, Sandata’s CEO, the voice biometrics system will help ensure that the "The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (which administers Medicaid) only pays for the '5 rights' - the right service provided, at the right location, at the right time, for the right patient, by the right caregiver."

The voice biometrics system, which is powered by PerSay’s VocalPassword™ product, will confirm home health visits by taking calls from home health personnel (nurses and home health aides), who directly provide services to Medicaid recipients, at the beginning and end of each home health visit using the recipient's home telephone. The system will verify that the correct caregiver provided the service by comparing their sample voiceprint to their base voiceprint on file.

Embedded Voice Biometrics Solutions

An article in The Economic Times (India)states that voice biometrics is not yet a viable option for logging on mobile devices such as computers and smart phones. The author claims that these devices are not sophisticated enough to handle biometric technology. I don’t know if that’s the case.

What I do know is that embedded voice biometrics, where enrollment and verification functionality is self-contained, is a natural fit for smart phones and other devices with a microphone. Additionally, several voice biometrics vendors (e.g., PerSay) are actively engaged in developing embedded solutions.

One company, Sensory, Inc., based in Sunnyvale, CA, has been providing embedded voice biometrics solutions to the toy and robotics industry for years. I’ve seen this technology in use in a toy voice activated biometric-safe. According to Sensory’s Website, their product’s “equal error rate (where the probability of an incorrect acceptance equals that of an incorrect rejection) ranges between 0.01-7% depending on the number of words and whether the passwords are known to the fraudster.”

I’m certain that, in the not too distant future, we’ll have a robust voice biometrics solution which can be embedded in a variety of mobile devices.

Voice Biometrics and HIPAA

Jason Gaya posted an item about HIPAA and biometrics on his emPower LMS blog that, in my opinion, makes a strong case for a voice biometrics solution. HIPAA mandates strict protection of health records. One way to ensure compliance is to implement tighter identity verification through multi-factor authentication. The three factor categories are “something the caller knows” (e.g., account number), “something the caller has” (e.g., hardware token) and “something the caller is” (e.g., voiceprint).

In his article, Gaya identifies several features that a biometric system used to secure health records should have:

• Cost-effective
• User-friendly
• Easy to deploy
• Fast verification process
• High degree of accuracy (e.g., low crossover error rate (CER))
• Interoperability
• Customized to the environment (e.g., factor in background noise of emergency room, etc.)

I believe that a voice biometrics solution has those features. Additionally, it’s a proven technology which can ensure HIPAA compliance by allowing only authorized access to health records.

Criteria for Selecting a Voice Biometrics System

An item on policeone.com, by Thomas Bush III, Strategic Advisor for BIO-key International, caught my attention. In the article, “How to buy police biometrics products,” he presents guidelines, or, what he calls the “Four E’s,” for selecting biometrics systems. Although Mr. Bush focuses on fingerprint biometrics, I believe his criteria are spot-on for voice biometrics as well. Here they are:

• Effectiveness: “The basic measure of any authentication solution is accuracy. However, biometrics accuracy often comes with a price - in the form of “false negatives” or improper rejection of individuals who should have been successfully authenticated. While this is often attributed to “user error,” the potential end result in user frustration and time lost in re-authenticating must still be part of the measurement of overall effectiveness.”

• Ease of deployment and use: “No technology can be effective unless, and until, it’s operational and in regular use. A “bleeding edge” biometrics solution, even if it’s potentially more effective, may never get out of pilot, and one that users find confusing or cumbersome may not even make it that far. The solution should be easy to deploy and maintain and shouldn’t require significant changes to business processes.”

• Enterprise-wide capability: “While an organization may deploy an authentication solution to meet a single need today, it makes sense early in the selection process to look at where and how the use of biometrics may be expanded to meet future needs. This can save money and simplify administration.”

• Economic considerations: “Keeping costs under control is important – even when budgets aren’t under the strain they are today. …While the software is usually proprietary, a strong ongoing maintenance and support agreement can help ensure that the software can be enhanced on an ongoing basis, extending the life cycle of the solution, even as technology changes.”

Voice Biometrics Opportunity -- Authenticating the Identity of e-Prescribers

The March 31, 2010 Federal Register included an interim final rule posting by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) that would permit hospitals, healthcare providers, and pharmacies to use electronic prescriptions in the dispensing of controlled drugs. Although providers may currently create electronic prescriptions for controlled substances, those prescriptions cannot be transmitted as electronic data files to the pharmacy. Instead, the e-prescriptions must be printed out for signatures or faxed to a pharmacy. The DEA's rule would eliminate the need for a manual process.

Of particular interest to the voice biometrics community is that the new rule allows "biometrics" (including voice) to be used, as one of two-factors, to authenticate the identity of the e-prescriber. Specifically, the rule states that the “DEA is allowing the use of a biometric as a substitute for a hard token or password.” For a biometric to be acceptable, it must meet several requirements (e.g., a “false accept rate” of 0.001 or better, etc.).

The opportunity is there. Who will be the first to step up to the plate?

Top Three Banks in Israel Deploy Voice Biometrics

According to a press release, PerSay has completed the deployment of public-facing voice biometrics systems at the top three banks in Israel – Bank HaPoalim, Bank Leumi and Discount Bank. Applications range from automatic PIN reset to multi-factor identity verification.

Bank HaPoalim’s Contact Center manager commented about voice biometrics on Israeli TV as follows:”Besides the efficiency we gained by eliminating authentication questions, we have significantly improved our service accessibility and customer experience.” Also, Israel’s former Chief Scientist (and PerSay Board Member), Dr. Orna Berry, commented that she expects to see a global expansion of voice biometrics in the next few years to accessing remote services and applications over the phone, Internet, as well as mobile devices.

This latest news can only enhance the credibility of voice biometrics as the right technology for remote identity verification in contact centers. As my recent article on speechtechmag.com asks, “What’s Everyone Waiting for?”

Opus Research: Voice Biometrics Webcast Recap

Dan Miller and Derek Top, Opus Research, along with Paul Heirendt, CEO of TradeHarbor, presented a Webcast yesterday titled “Meeting New Demands for User Authentication.”

The central theme was that voice biometrics should be seen as an enabling technology (i.e., for transactions and interactions) over a number of channels and networks. Paul presented several examples, including:

• Identity and authentication – voice biometrics authenticates that the person is actually who they claim to be

• Increased customer convenience and reduced operations costs – live agent knowledge-based authentication takes 30 seconds to 2 minutes while voice biometrics authentication takes less than 9 seconds

• Privacy protection – voice biometrics strengthens authentication which can lead to a stronger privacy protection policy

Click here to view the archived Webcast.