Voice experts speak out at biometric security conference

Edward O'Daly

6 October 2006: The University has hosted the world's first conference focussing on using voice authentication technology for security.

Interstate delegates joined representatives of Canberra agencies and businesses to learn how the technology had the potential to revolutionise security at the conference, organised by the University's National Centre for Biometric Studies (NCBS).

Vice-Chancellor Roger Dean (left) opens the conference watched by (from left) Nick Flude and speakers Judith Markowitz and Rob Allen

"This is the first conference of its kind," NCBS deputy director Clive Summerfield said.

"We're concentrating on voice because it has unique benefits that are not being explored."

According to Dr Summerfield, voice authentication has advantages over other biometric technologies - security systems that take into account a person's characteristics when verifying they are who they say they are - but had long been the "poorer cousin" to systems like fingerprint, iris and face recognition.

Voice authentication didn't require expensive hardware and worked remotely over the phone, he explained.

He said the NCBS was in a position to give organisations interested in using biometrics a balanced view of the best product for them.

"We can cut through the rhetoric to give a high-level independent view of these technologies and how they operate," he added.

Speaker Rob Allen, biometrics analyst with US business consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, told Monitor universities could have an important role to play in the biometrics sector in developing new technologies. The NCBS could act as a bridge between academia and the marketplace, helping commercialise good ideas, he said.

"If a university can get in early it will be a thought leader in this space," Mr Allen added.