Voice biometric software company SpeechPro announced recently that it participated in the NIST Speaker Recognition i-Vector Machine Learning Challenge. According to NIST the challenge, which focused on the development of new methods for using i-vectors for speaker recognition in conversational telephone situations, was designed to foster research progress in voice technology.
“There’s been an increased interest in the use of voice biometrics and speaker recognition for law enforcement agencies as well as for commercial applications in banking or call-center industries in recent years,” says Alexey Khitrov, president of SpeechPro. “Discovering the true identity of a voice offers an unprecedented opportunity to protect access to information as well as secure it.”
He continues: “STC has engaged voice biometrics for over 15 years. The company invests significant resources in one of the largest R&D team in the industry, and the test results once again confirm the leading position of the technology utilized by SpeechPro products.”
SpeechPro’s solutions have been on the receiving end of increased distribution. In June, the company announced that it has partnered with Avaya in order to offer its VoiceKey platform through the DevConnect MarketPlace. This announcement saw VoiceKey offered to customers looking to bolster their call center, interactive voice response (IVR) or mobile applications.
Earlier this year, findBIOMETRICS interviewed Khitrov and he offered insight into the driving ideas behind voice biometrics.
“The technology is ‘disruptive’ because when you compare it to the existing password based verification, biometrics are just more secure,” he said. “It’s not ‘what you know’, but ‘who you are’. Passwords can be stolen, they can be intercepted and someone can look over your shoulder. Most of us have multiple accounts on social networks, with banks, companies and so forth and by human nature we tend to repeat our passwords. So if somebody knows your Facebook or Skype password, chances are you are using the same password in some of your other accounts as well. Now, your security is compromised. When you are using biometrics that is a different story, your voice or your face cannot be stolen.”
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July 18, 2014 – by Peter B. Counter
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