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New Technology Enables Computers to Identify, Verify User Voices Industry Consortium's Speaker Verification API Specification to Make Computers, Telecommunications More Secure Provo, Utah -- April 15, 1997 -- Technology that makes computers and applications more secure by identifying and verifying the voices of the people who use them was announced today by the Speech Recognition API Committee, an industry-wide consortium of leading technology developers and users. The Speaker Verification API Specification (SVAPI), version 1.0 will be available this spring to software developers and manufacturers for use in applications such as telecommunications, electronic commerce, banking and finance where the computer system's ability to identify and verify the voice of an authorized user can meet demanding requirements for secure communications and access to information. The new API specification guides developers in creating solutions that can both identify a speaker's voice and verify the speaker's authorization to access information or other computer resources. The open, standard application programming interface (API) will expand the market for these solutions by allowing developers to engineer applications that will be compatible and interoperable with systems from different vendors, including customers' existing information networks and the Internet. Computer networking leader Novell, Inc. chairs the SVAPI sub-committee responsible for the new API specification and has played a leading role in its development. Other members include Citicorp, Dialogic, Higgins and Associates International, Hughes, IBM Corp., ITT Industries, I. D. International, J. Markowitz Consultants, Motorola, Texas Instruments, T-NETIX Inc, US Government-- Dept. Of Defense (DOD), Internal Revenue Services (IRS), Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)--, VeriVoice. Judith Markowitz, leading industry consultant, and major proponent of SVAPI, underlined the importance of SVAPI. "This is a critical step in developing the Speaker Verification and Identification markets, she stated. "The strong vendor support behind SVAPI will make this the natural path for both technology and application developers." "Speaker Verification and Identification Technology will be a tremendous boon to the banking and electronic commerce industries," added Elizabeth Boyle, independent consultant, and former executive with Chase Manhattan bank. "I expect to see several high profile security technologies using voice verification this year. This is a high-growth arena with massive potential." Integration with Customer Networks The SVAPI is designed to integrate with the client-server applications used by businesses across today's data and telecommunications networks, including the Internet. The technology can add value to a broad range of Internet and Telephony applications, including Java applications designed for access and distribution across multiple platforms. Speaker Verification and Identification technology can provide user- friendly secure access to networks, electronic commerce, stock and bank transactions, and many other applications. Studies show that Speaker Verification is more effective in most security applications than conventional systems that asks the user to type a password. Research indicates that 30% of passwords can be guessed by unauthorized users, while Speaker Verification and Identification Technology is capable of error rates of under a few percent. In addition, solutions developed with the new API specifications can be secured against recordings or voice imitations. Availability The SVAPI specification is free, and can be downloaded from the SVAPI home page at http://www.srapi.com/svapi, or contact Bruce Armstrong (contact information below) for hard copies. Initial SVAPI code will be available for use by application, operating system, and hardware developers shortly. Prototypes using SVAPI will be showcased by several technology vendors in upcoming industry shows. SVAPI will be available initially for Java and soon thereafter for Windows 95/Windows NT and Unix. Future SVAPI Sub-committee efforts will include strong integration with telephony standards, particularly the Enterprise Computer Telephony Form's (ECTF) S.100 specification. There will also be efforts to support other biometrics, such as fingerprints or retina scans. The SVAPI sub-committee will also explore ways to integrate the API specification with secure transfer protocols, such as those recently announced by Intel and Microsoft. The SVAPI Sub-committee is actively pursuing new members. For more information, see the SRAPI/SVAPI home page at www.srapi.com/svapi, or contact Bruce Armstrong of Novell at (information below).
Press Contacts:
Citibank
Dialogic (ECTF Representative)
Hughes
Higgens and Associates, International
IBM Corp.
I. D. International
ITT Industries Inc.
J. Markowitz Consultants
Rockwell, Multimedia Comm. Div.
T-NETIX Inc.
US INS
VeriVoice Inc.
Leading Hardware and Software Vendors Support SVAPI "We have been extremely pleased with the industry collaboration on the SVAPI development," said Bruce Armstrong, Chair of the Speech Recognition API (SRAPI) Committee and Manager, Novell Speech Technologies. "The SVAPI Sub-committee, working under the auspices of the SRAPI Committee, with the common goal of increasing the availability of Verification and Identification Technology to users and application developers, fierce competitors sat down together and hammered out a solution." Phil Shinn, Systems Architect, Citicorp Development Center: "We are delighted with the new standard. In the past, we have had to completely rewrite applications in order to test out different technologies. SVAPI is going to make my life much easier." Moshe Yudkowsky, senior systems architect at computer telephony vendor Dialogic Corporation, and editor of the ECTF's ASR Task Group, said, "Telecommunications applications that use 'ordinary' speech recognition are now common, but application developers have been hindered by the lack of a standard, technologically viable API for the special needs of speaker verification. The SVAPI committee has crafted an excellent API, and has paid careful attention to the problems of telecommunications and large-scale deployments. The Enterprise Computer Telephony Forum -- ECTF -- Automatic Speech Recognition Task Group intends to incorporate SVAPI's work into its "S.100" specification. We look forward to continued close cooperation with the industry experts in SVAPI." "Security is of paramount importance in this age of global network computing," said Stephane Maes, IBM Software Architect. "Speaker verification and identification -- especially when utilized with other existing security and encryption technologies -- will help accelerate the growth in confidence and use of electronic commerce." Peter Higgens, Principal Consultant for Higgens& Associates International expressed his approval of the SVAPI process. "The SVAPI Sub-committee has produces an interface specification that will permit system integrators to consider Speaker Verification services without being forced to choose among proprietary interfaces." ITT Industries' spokesman Frank W. Smead states: "Customer need for SVAPI is strong. In early 1996, our internal API specification was one of the most popular pieces of literature at our exhibit booth at the Computer Telephony Expo in LA. Based on this evidence of customer demand, we offered this early version of SVAPI to the committee. It was used as a model to get started on the resultant specifications which are about to be released." "We see SVAPI as a strong effort with the backing of all the right people, which will accelerate the adoption of speaker verification in an already very interested market." said Tom Huzjak, CEO of T- NETIX, Inc. "The SVAPI Sub-committee has helped us achieve a goal that we set some time ago. We are already adapting our efforts to the SVAPI specification, and will release an SVAPI-complaint Software Development Kit in the third quarter." Brad Wing, of the US INS also expressed excitement about the effort. "We have been using speaker verification technology at the US borders with excellent success. The SVAPI effort will make our future applications easier to develop because we won't have to use proprietary APIs to develop prototypes and applications using various technology providers." Barry Frankel, CEO VeriVoice, was also pleased with the SVAPI effort. "The SVAPI team has been very good to work with. They made sincere efforts to address our needs. We are excited to begin working on SVAPI prototypes as soon as SVAPI sample code becomes available." |
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