World's First Nationwide Voice Identification System Deployed in Mexico

The world’s first nationwide automatic voice identification system, using Speech Technology Center's proprietary biometric platform, will help Mexican law enforcement agencies collect, manage, and search the database of hundreds of thousands—and later millions—of voice prints.

This automatic voice identification system adds an important technological capability in the Mexican government’s fight against crime. It quickly identifies a speaker by comparing a voice sample to a database of existing voiceprints.

The platform can compare short utterances recorded by various recording channels (microphone, land-line, GSM, Voice over Internet Protocol) regardless of the gender, age, language, or an accent of the speaker. Distributed computational architecture makes the system completely scalable without any loss of reliability or efficiency.

Due to its proprietary Web-based architecture, the system is accessible by more than 250 local police departments in all 32 Mexican states 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Speech Technology Center (STC) has been a long-term partner of Mexican law enforcement. Throughout the past seven years, almost half of all Mexican states developed forensic capabilities in voice biometrics with STC technologies. Introduction of the nationwide voice-based identification system is a logical continuation of this work, according to officials at STC, which is based in Russia.

With the first successful nationwide voice-based identification system deployment, STC expects voice biometrics to gain recognition as a proven identification method with a real-life track record. STC is already negotiating a number of similar systems deployments in Latin America, Asia, and Europe. Growing demand for voice biometrics in general—and voice-based identification in particular—signals an emergence of a new market segment with a potential to grow to a $500 million industry, according to the company.

"We are excited to see a successful deployment of the world’s first voice-based identification platform in Mexico," said Michael Khitrov, CEO of STC, in a statement. "It’s a landmark deployment in the voice biometric industry, and the impact of this project is difficult to overestimate. Mexico is a pioneer in this field. and we are happy to work with our Mexican colleagues, one of the most experienced groups of biometric professionals in the world. This deployment will showcase the convenience and reliability of voice as an identifier. We expect a significant growth in the voice-based identification segment and already received several inquiries on implementation of STC voice-based platforms in other countries."