The Voice Signature Service^SM (VSS) system provides increased security derived from the capture and analysis of a person’s voice. This security comes in the form of explicit authorization, authentication, and audit trails for a broad range of applications.

The VSS system uses a combination of voice technologies (Voice Verification, and Automatic Speech Recognition), and a unique Voice User Interface and user dialog to create a secure and cost effective method of verifying the identity of individuals.

Moving beyond what other voice verification engines and applications provide, the VSS incorporates the necessary elements to create a legally-binding transaction and meet the various regulatory requirements for financial transactions:

• Authentication
  – Is the User who they claim to be?
• Authorization
  – Is the User cooperating in providing their Voice Signature?
• Audit Trail
  – Can the transaction be audited at a later date?

Voice Signatures

Traditionally, important transactions are consummated with a hand-written signature on a document. A Voice Signature is computer analysis of a person's voice to verify an identity-claim with a high degree of accuracy… Your voice is uniquely you - your voice IS your signature. A Voice Signature consists of at least two short utterances of speech per transaction. The entire process, including verification, takes no more than 10 to 15 seconds over the phone, or on the web.

A Voice Signature is an electronic representation of an individual's utterances, with the following properties:

1. Reconstructable - The stored electronic representation of the speaker's voice is rich enough to allow the reconstruction of the original speech utterance for audition and identity judgment by other listeners and/or devices.
2. Identity Labeled - The electronic representation must be associated with an identity-claim.
3. Protected - The electronic representation must be transmitted over secure channels, encrypted before storage and transmission, and accessible only to authorized individuals and/or organizations.

TradeHarbor's Voice Signature Service^SM operates with all three of these properties in place.

The end user interacts with VSS (using existing equipment) to provide their Voice Signature. No specialized equipment is required as Voice Signatures are taken over the telephone, or through a microphone-equipped computer.

The Voice Signature Service^SM Bureau provides added security for remote interactions with people.  The added security comes from the capture and analysis of voice recordings in the interaction. The benefits of explicit Authentication, Authorization, and Audit Trails are valuable in a broad range of applications.

The Voice Signature Service^SM enables Requestors (banks, merchants and others) to authenticate users in a remote transaction using their Voice Signature.

The VSS centralized service model enables enrolled Users to provide their Voice Signature for any transaction, with any Requestor, from any phone or computer. The service returns a confidence score to the Requestor that represents the relative assurance that the User is who they claim to be. This enables truly portable, strong authentication and authorization.

The VSS “Federated” approach allows multiple applications for multiple businesses (e.g., banks, merchants, etc.) to benefit from a Users enrollment without requiring that User to re-enroll for each application or business served by the VSS system. In fact, the VSS system can provide Authentication and Signature Services to other organizations, such as Merchants, during Card-Not-Present transactions to drastically reduce credit/debit card fraud.

The cost savings and subjective benefits to financial services organizations, and other requestors, come from several areas:

• Fraud reduction – reduces fraudulent activity and related losses
• Operator Services cost reduction – reduces live operator minutes used to verify Customer identity
• Customer appreciation – the Requestor is helping protect Customer against Identity Theft

Signature Model – “Voice Signatures”

Unlike other biometric vendors and service providers, the VSS goes beyond the basic authentication function and provides the additional functions required by the various market sectors TradeHarbor serves, such as the credit card, banking, financial services and healthcare.

TradeHarbor’s Authentication/Authorization/Audit trail components meet American Bar Association guidelines for a legally-binding digital signature.

The VSS “signature model” enables strong compliance with regulatory issues such as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and the USA PATRIOT Act in financial services, and HIPAA in healthcare.

What are Biometrics?

Biometrics are measurements of an individual's unique physical, behavioral, and biological qualities. In practice, biometrics are used to determine a person's identity from a physical characteristic (e.g., fingerprint, handprint, face, scent, thermal image, or iris pattern), or a behavior pattern (e.g., voice or handwriting signature).

Essentially, all biometric technology works on the same principle. Each user is enrolled by the system and a copy of the enrollment data is stored in a database. When users present themselves for authentication, a new scan/sample is taken and compared with the one(s) stored in the database. If the scan matches, verification is confirmed.

Why Voice?

A recent article on using biometrics for security in IT Professional (a journal from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) shows voice as the best, most acceptable biometric technology.[1]

From “A Practical Guide to Biometric Security Technology,” IEEE Computer Society,
IT Professional – Security, Jan-Feb 2001, Simon Liu and Mark Silverman

People prefer voice for authentication to other biometrics because:

• Voice is intuitive – people are accustomed to recognizing other people by their voice;
• Voice is portable – your voice is always with you and no extra device is needed;
• The VSS system is not language dependent – so it can be used globally;
• Voice is non-threatening – unlike retina or iris scans;
• Voice does not have a forensic connotation – most people associate fingerprints with crime.

Voice analysis technology has been around for years. Applying it used to be tougher than rocket science. Now you can get all the benefits of advanced technology without all the complexity and overhead of managing Gigabytes of voice reference data, dealing with advanced speech technology, and worrying about all the legal issues involved.

Voice Signatures are recordings of randomly prompted phrases that speakers provide for a specific purpose like making a purchase, getting access to sensitive materials, providing authorization, etc.

The Voice Signatures are permanently retained, but only the participating parties have access to the voice signature files.

Biometrics

Measuring and analyzing biologic features, or "biometrics" can identify a person. The biometric science known as Speaker Identity Verification (SIV) uses measurements of the unique features of a persons voice to verify their identity. Everyone's voice consists of a unique combination of features that make it distinct from all others. Computer analysis of the digitized voice signal can produce a very specific, quantifiable, and reliable verification of an individual's identity.

There are two distinct types of tasks that can be accomplished by voice analysis:

• Recognition of a person's identity
• Verification of a person's identity

To understand the difference is critical.

Recognition

Recognition requires the comparison of a voice sample to all of the possible matches in order to identify a specific person. This task is huge, and increasingly difficult as the size of the given population grows.

Verification

Verification, on the other hand, uses both a voice sample and an identity-claim. The task is reduced to comparing two known factors: the authenticated identity that is enrolled in the system, and the claimed identity submitted for comparison. Therefore, verification is not dependent on the size of the population, and is a much more practical, less time-consuming task.

TradeHarbor's Voice Signature Service^SM system operates on a verification model. Users are enrolled in the system to establish the voice reference data for a given identity-claim. Our Speaker Identity Verification (SIV) system employs our proprietary speech analysis technology to compare a voice sample from a claimed identity with the voice reference data from the authenticated identity.