Fighting Crime with Speaker Identification
Finland police using Speaker Identification technology to fight crime. Speaker Identification uniquely identifies suspects from voice samples and can avert acts of terror by providing vital information and save many innocent lives.
Tweet-- Finland police are harnessing the power of Speaker Identification Technology to fight terror and crime reports Helsingin Sanomat (10/11/2008). A speech database of wanted people will be available to police nationwide, and it will function similar to DNA and fingerprint databases currently available with the police. The system detects a person just on the basis of their voice from phone call or other recordings.
DNA and fingerprint matches help only post-facto and only after a suspect is in the bag, whereas speaker identification helps anytime a suspect uses a phone or leaves a voice record somewhere; clues can come before an actual strike. It can be of immense help to Intelligence Agencies in their efforts to detect planned acts of terror.
Terror operatives change devices and SIMs all the time, so it is hard to find who is behind a number at a given time. But voice fragments, snatched from any speech channel -phone, radio, Internet, etc. - can provide substantial leads immediately and automatically. This can guide pre-emption and investigation both.
Speech experts say that modern Speaker Identification technology can work with minimal training data and detect suspects in near real time. Clues to planned strikes can save innocent lives and speaker identification is a potent technology for obtaining these. It is heartening to note that such advanced technology is now available in India itself, a team of ex-IITians having developed it recently.
Notes to Editor
Voice IT provides consulting service in the space of speech technologies to government and businesses. These solutions help in National Security, lowering business costs and driving up revenues