October 1, 2012The use of biometrics and government-run centralized biometric databases is on rise and it seems like every day brings a new identification method including pedo-biometrics (using feet to identify targets), remote biometrics (using surveillance cameras), soft biometrics (which can be deployed on drone platforms), iris scans (which people are being illegally pressured into submitting to), high-speed facial recognition software (the use of which is being expanded to police departments across the United States by the FBI) and even so-called behavioral recognition software.
According to the FBI’s Biometric Center of Excellence, voice recognition is a “popular choice for remote authentication due to the availability of devices for collecting speech samples (e.g., telephone network and computer microphones) and its ease of integration, speaker recognition is different from some other biometric methods in that speech samples are captured dynamically or over a period of time, such as a few seconds.”
We’ve also seen strange implementations of voice recognition technology as evidenced by the deployment of voice recognition avatars at border crossings and even voice recognition technology in police cars.
Now the Russian Speech Technology Center, which, according to Slate, operates as SpeechPro in the United States, has created a program called VoiceGrid Nation capable of storing and identifying massive numbers of voice samples for governments around the world.
