THE WORLD’S MOST COMPREHENSIVE EVALUATION OF COMMERCIAL VOICE AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGIES

In 2005, the University of Canberra’s National Centre for Biometric Studies was commissioned by the Australian Government (through their telecommunication provider Telstra Corporation) to undertake a scientific evaluation of commercial voice authentication technologies to determine their suitability for applications in Government services.

The resulting report details the performance of four technologies Nuance, Scansoft, Persay and Kaz Technologies in a range of environments and situations including; verification of subjects counting, saying names, using the technology in various noise conditions, the impact of 3G mobile telephone networks, understand the effects of time and answering the question; is a sibling more likely to fool the technology than a complete stranger?; The study also investigated the impact of reduced or compromised enrolment and what would happen if you allowed enrolment over a mobile telephone.

The evaluation studied both text-dependent and text-independent technologies, and looked at different technologies robustness, susceptibility and vulnerabilities in real-world operating conditions.

Two reports are available for free download:

The 2005 University of Canberra Voice Authentication Evaluation

Speaker Verification Evaluation Report

and

The University of Canberra 2006 Persay Technology Re-evaluation

Persay 2006 Technology Evaluation Results

2007 - VOICE AUTHENTICATION EVALUATIONS

Welcome to the University of Canberra 2007 Voice Authentication Technology Evaluations ((UCANIVAEVAL -2007).

In 2005 University of Canberra’s National Centre for Biometric Studies undertook the world’s most comprehensive evaluation of emerging voice authentication technologies.

These evaluation focused on evaluating the performance of commercial available technologies to determine their suitably for applications in Government, banking and telecommunications services.  The 2005 evaluation showed without doubt that commercial voice authentication technologies were maturing fast, a conclusion that lead Government agencies and telecommunications carriers to commerce trialing the technology for key services.

But technology moves on. The last two years has seen a large number of new entrants. Vendors claim that their technologies are more accurate and more robust performance.  But just how good are they? What are the vulnerabilities and limitations of these technologies? and are they ready for prime time?

The University of Canberra 2007 Voice Authentication Evaluations aims to answer these questions and many more by providing the most world’s most comprehensive evaluation of voice authentication. The evaluation focuses on providing users with the objective vendor independent evidence they need to move forward with their plans; whilst providing vendors with the information to promote their competitive advantage and the information to focus their research and development activities.

Evaluation Methodology

The 2007 evaluations are based on the 2005 evaluations allowing direct comparison between 2005 and 2007 results.   

The 2007 evaluations will include:

·       Calibrating authentication performance on people counting and saying account numbers

·       Determining the performance on people saying names and speaking share secret information

·       Understand technology robustness in various noise scenarios, including white noise, traffic noise, shopping centre and office environments

·       Understand technology performance in mobile telephone networks

·       Looking at demographic effects, including siblings impostor testing

·       Investigating the impact of longitudinal effects in speech on authentication performance

·       Understand the impact of reduced (or compromised) enrolment and looking at the impact of enrolment in mobile telephone networks.

Industry Sponsorship

The NCBS is actively seeking sponsorship from the industry to underwrite expenses associated with the evaluations.  For more information on sponsorship opportunities please e-mail ncbs@canberra.edu.au

Vendor Participation

Vendor participation is free. If you are a vendor and would like to be included in the evaluation, please e-mail ncbs@canberra.edu.au