eurovoice

Securing your apps; speaker verification.

In the decades that I have been involved in the computer telephony industry, one area of technology that I feel has been misunderstood and consequently not exploited to the max, is that of speaker verification.  I first deployed a system that used this in 1989 to provide an additional level of security in a telephone banking system for a major Scottish bank.

Speaker verification is a technology typically used to increase the security of Interactive Voice Response systems.  As such it is most commonly used within financial sectors, but is also found for secure access to network information, medical applications and clinical user trials.

The technology behind speaker verification is similar to that used for speech recognition.  However, unlike speech recognition - where the system is optimised to detect WHAT was said by ANYONE, speaker verification aims to confirm whether the speech originated from the intended person.