Glossary

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Active Voice Biometrics: Active Voice Biometrics is an approach to using Voice Biometrics that requires the user to say additional utterances that would not otherwise have been required when calling or interacting with a speech service for authentication or enrolment.
Authentication: Authentication is the call centre security process step in which a user's identity is confirmed. We check they are who they claim to be. It requires the use of one or more authentication factors.

Consent: Consent is a step in the registration process where a user provides permission to process their biometric data before enrolment in a Voice Biometric system in a way which complies with applicable data protection and privacy legislation.

Efficiency: Efficiency is what a call centre's security process costs, in agent time and in the self-service it prevents. It is one of the three measures of a security process's performance, with usability and security.
Enrolment: Enrolment is a step in the registration process where specific utterances are requested from the user or previously acquired audio is used to create a Voice Biometric template (Voiceprint) for subsequent use in Authentication/Identification.

False AcceptFA: A False Accept is when an imposter is incorrectly accepted as the genuine user during authentication.
False RejectFR: A False Reject is the case when during authentication, a user who is the genuine user is incorrectly rejected.

Identification: Identification is the step of a call centre security process that works out which customer the caller claims to be, by finding their record. It comes before authentication, which checks that the claim is true.

Network Authentication and Fraud Prevention: Network Authentication and Fraud Prevention uses signalling data from a phone call either to confirm that the call originated from a device known to be in possession of the genuine user or to detect when the call has originated from a device, location or network indicative of suspicious behaviour.

Offer: Offer is a step in the registration process where a user is introduced to and offered enrolment in a Voice Biometric service.

Passive Voice Biometrics: Passive Voice Biometrics authenticates and enrols users without them needing to do anything additional to their reason for calling or interacting with a speech service.
Presentation Attack: Presentation attacks are a form of attack on a biometric system when the fraudster attempts to gain access by presenting a fake biometrics characteristic or artefact. In the case of Voice Biometrics, this is most often with a recording or a synthetic voice.

Registration: Registration is the business process where a user is offered, consents to, and completes a Voice Biometric service enrolment.

Security: Security is how well a call centre's security process keeps out callers who are not who they claim to be. It is one of the three measures of a security process's performance, with usability and efficiency.
Synthetic Speech Detection: Synthetic Speech Detection is a mechanism used to protect Voice Biometrics systems from presentation attacks using synthetic speech. It relies on detecting characteristics inherent in the text-to-speech (TTS) generation process.

Text-Dependent Voice Biometrics: A form of Voice Biometrics that is dependent on the same utterance used during enrolment being repeated during authentication or identification.
Text-Independent Voice Biometrics: Text Independent Voice Biometrics is a form of Voice Biometrics that is not dependent on the utterance being used during enrolment being repeated during authentication or identification.
True User Imposter TestTUIT: A True User Imposter Test evaluates the False Accept and False Reject rates of a Voice Biometric system by using existing users of the system to simulate imposter attempts. This is an essential step in establishing the appropriate Biometric threshold.
Tuning: Tuning, in the context of voice biometrics, refers to the process of adjusting the configuration and parameters of a voice biometric system to optimize its performance for a particular task or environment.

Usability: Usability is how easily genuine customers, and the agents who serve them, get through a call centre's security process. It is one of the three measures of a security process's performance, with efficiency and security.

Voice Biometrics: Voice Biometrics uses the unique properties of a speaker's voice to confirm their identity (authentication) or identify them from a group of known speakers (identification).