Voice Biometrics: How it works!

Enrollment Process

Creating a Voiceprint.  The process of creating a voiceprint is called "enrollment". In most commercial speaker verification and identification systems there is a formal, one-time process where speech samples are collected from an individual. The basic steps of this process are outlined below:

Pre-Process.  Before being sent to the voice biometric engine, speech samples are fully evaluated using a custom audio pre-processing library. We determine if there are any issues which would prevent the engine from doings its job (i.e. background noise, distortion, low signal power, etc). Interactive feedback is provided if there are any issues -- this helps to greatly minimize "failure to enroll" errors.

Feature Extraction.  Once we are sure the speech samples are of sufficient content and quality, the VMM-1™ engine extracts unique vocal features from the samples. VBG uses standard acoustic features (MFCC and LPC), as well as our own custom feature set. The use of multiple feature sets allows us to build more accurate voice models.

Template Generation.  Extracted features are benchmarked relative to universal background models or cohort models, and are then further refined into a mathematical model that uniquely represents a user's speech patterns. This unique model is called a "template" or a "voiceprint".

Voiceprint Storage.  Voiceprints are not WAV or other audio files. They are statistical representations of speech and thus cannot be stolen or used anywhere except within our system. Our voiceprints use a proprietary storage format that is further encrypted within our database system. Finally, all databases are housed and managed 24x365 in our secure data centers.

Verification Process

Verification.  During a verification process, an individual makes a claim of identity (i.e. typically by saying or entering some kind of user ID) and then they are prompted to submit a speech sample. A temporary voiceprint is made from the speech sample and is then compared to the stored reference voiceprint for the individual.

Pre-Processing and Feature Extraction.  As with the enrollment process, the verification sample is evaluated with a number of audio quality tests. Once these tests have passed, features are extracted.

Comparison.  A temporary template (or voice print) is created. This temporary voice print is then compared to both the reference voice print for the user and "generic" voice print information from universal or cohort models. A score is derived for how closely the temporary print matches the reference voice print PLUS the relative score of the temporary print to the universal or cohort models. This dual scoring system provides greater matching accuracy.

Thresholds and Scoring.  The VMM-1™ engine is fully tunable and can operate at any desired confidence level. For instance, a client may wish to have a 99% match confidence for a particular group of users. So, VBG will configure the engine with the appropriate threshold for a 99% match confidence. As long as the score meets or exceeds this threshold value, a "pass" result is returned. Otherwise, a "fail" result is returned.

Identification Process

Identification.  During an identification process, there is no initial claim of identify made. Instead, an individual is simply prompted to submit a speech sample. A temporary voiceprint is made from the speech sample and is then compared to all reference voiceprints stored in the database in order to find the best match.

Pre-Processing and Feature Extraction.  As with the enrollment process, the identification sample is evaluated with a number of audio quality tests. Once these tests have passed, features are extracted.

Comparison.  A temporary template (or voice print) is created. This temporary voice print is then compared to all reference voice prints stored in the database. Various classification techniques are used to speed this process up (for instance, male versus female vocal characteristics).

Maximum Likelihood.  The identification process does not use a score threshold. Instead, all results are ranked in reverse order and are returned with the match probability and raw score. Our system suggests the best match, but our service API returns all results so that client systems can make the final decision or perform additional calculations if desired.

Voice Biometrics - Phone Banking & ATM Security Application

Achieving Customer Satisfaction through Implementation of Voice Biometrics


Voice authentication has a number of advantages. The cost of implementation is low because there is no special hardware required. A simple telephone or microphone is all that a user needs to authenticate using her voice. Other methods of biometric authentication like fingerprinting and retinal scans require special devices.


Voice authentication is easy to use and easily accepted by users. It is quite natural to speak. It is not as natural to put an eye up to a reader. The concept of identifying people by voices is also quite natural. Every time someone answers a telephone call, the natural instinct is to try to identify the caller by his voice.


Perhaps most important to the future of voice biometrics is that it is the only biometric that allows users to authenticate remotely. Allowing a user to call a phone number and authenticate with her bank vocally to perform a transaction is much easier than asking the user to go to the bank in person and authenticate
via fingerprint.


It is quick to enroll in a voice authentication system. The user is asked to speak a certain set of words or phrases, or to speak for a certain length of time. From that sample, a digital representation of the voice, called a voiceprint, is created. A good voiceprint is between 2-8 seconds of speech.


Authenticating a user is accomplished by comparing the voiceprint that was created at enrollment to a sample given when the user wants to enter the restricted area or system. Authentication is very fast; it can be completed in 0.5 seconds.

Another advantage is that the storage size of the voiceprint is small. How small it is will be vendor specific, but one vendor, Voice Security Systems, states that a user’s voice print is less than 1K in size.This is so small that it can be stored almost anywhere: smart cards, floppy disks, databases, even on cell phones.


Banking
Reducing crime at Automated Teller Machines is an ongoing struggle. Banks have started using biometrics to authenticate users before allowing ATM transactions. Users generally must provide a pin number and a voice sample to be allowed access. Royal Canadian Bank is using voice authentication to allow access to telephone banking.

Voxtron Communication Center (VCC) is Lync platform ready!!

What does the topic mean to you ? ! !

Microsoft Lync Online is a next-generation cloud communications service that connects people in new ways, anytime, from virtually anywhere. Lync Online provides intuitive communications capabilities across presence, instant messaging, audio/video calling and a rich online meeting experience including PC-audio, video and web conferencing. Transform your interactions with colleagues, customers and partners from today’s hit-and-miss communication to a more collaborative, engaging, and effective experience.  We have combined the unified communication possibilities of Lync with the Contact Center features of VCC  and has  seamlessly integrated into a single  platform to empower the  agents to utilize its benefits. Some of these benefits are;

Know whether others are available to communicate. Repeatedly attempting to reach each other by phone or email is a common communication problem in today’s business world. Often the problem stems from workers who are physically separated by geography and time zones and who lack visibility into other people's availability or presence. Presence information is especially important when there is a need for a critical business discussion or a time-sensitive decision has to be made. Lync Online helps organizations increase individual productivity by adding presence, IM, and PC-to-PC audio and video calling to the business IT infrastructure.  

Presence and click-to-communicate from Microsoft Office Outlook. Collaborating with others can be challenging for workers whose jobs require constant use of business productivity applications during the work day. Lync Online connects presence and real-time collaboration capabilities with the Microsoft Office Outlook messaging and collaboration client. This enables higher productivity by allowing workers to collaborate using the programs they’re already familiar with.  

Connect with people and be more productive through a rich and immersive online meeting experience. Online meetings enable users to connect wherever they are through PC-based audio, video, and web conferencing, both as scheduled meetings and spontaneous, ad hoc collaboration sessions. With Lync Online, users can collaborate, share information, and coordinate their efforts in real time, all within the context of an existing workflow. Lync Online supports an integrated conferencing experience, enabling users to join the same conference from the PC (via the Microsoft Lync 2010 client) or from a phone (requires a separate dial-in audio conferencing service from a qualified partner).  

Collaborate within SharePoint sites. Lync Online serves as the presence engine for SharePoint team sites and portals, providing presence and IM access from within Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Server sites. For example, users can enable the Members Web Part to see the presence of anyone associated with a SharePoint site, which allows information workers to spend more productive time in their business productivity applications.  

Communicate with other organizations running Lync. The federation feature of Lync Online establishes trusted relationships between an organization and one or more external organizations. This allows users to see user presence and communicate using IM and PC-based audio and video across organizational boundaries.  

Communicate with Windows Live Messenger contacts. Lync Online enables your users to connect with Windows Live Messenger contacts using IM, audio and video calls directly from Lync.  

Reduce costs. Lync Online facilitates rich and engaging communications across and outside an organization without expensive business travel or costly phone bills. The Lync Online service allows organizations to focus IT resources on developing value instead of running IT infrastructure. Microsoft manages the risks and complexity of operational systems.

Voxtron Client for Microsoft Lync

Microsoft News: The biggest thing to hit the office since Microsoft Office! 

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Our News: Voxtron Client is now 100% Compliant with Microsoft Lync! 

"The Voxtron Client for Microsoft Lync"

Sounds good? Let's see how!

Microsoft® Lync® is an enterprise-ready unified communications platform. With Lync, users can keep track of their contacts’ availability; send an IM; start or join an audio, video, or web conference; or make a phone call—all through a consistent, familiar interface.  Lync is built to fully integrate with Microsoft Office. The Microsoft Lync 2010 desktop client is available for Windows and for Mac and mobile versions are available for Windows Phone, iPhone/iPad, and Android devices.

" Microsoft - Voxtron " Story

Microsoft has now partnered with Voxtron to integrate Lync with Voxtron's Client Interaction software. The objective has been to empower MS Lync infrastructure with Voxtron's Customer Interaction software and bring each and every customer's experience to the next level!

Finally, would you like to see a demonstration on how it actually works! Check out this video!