Progress Towards a Voice Standard

Defining the Type 11 Record of the ANSI/NIST-ITL Standard

Mark Przybocki 

NIST, ITL, Information Access Division 

http://www.nist.gov/itl/iad/mig 

Contributions from others at 

NIST, FBI, MIT-LL and Expert Consultants

Biometric Consortium Conference 2011 National Institute of Standards and Technology 28-SEP-11
 Biometric Consortium Conference 2011 National Institute of Standards and Technology 28-SEP-11

Setting Context 

ANSI/NIST-ITL Standard 

• Used by Federal, State, local and tribal agencies to exchange 

fingerprints, palm print, face and iris data 

• No current provision for voice data 

• Type 11 Record – reserved for Voice 

Challenges of Forensic Speaker Recognition 

• Broader set of transactions than access control 

• Limited control over field collection conditions 

• Standard doesn’t have a current model suitable for Voice 

adaption 
 Biometric Consortium Conference 2011 National Institute of Standards and Technology 28-SEP-11

The Nuisances of Speech 

• Speech data is a time domain signal containing characteristics 

that change within the recording 

– Background noise 

– Speaker behavior (pitch, vocal effort, language spoken ...)

– Speech content 

– Geographical location 

– Number of speakers 

• Collection variables 

– Multiple devices 

– Transmission channel 

– Room acoustics 

• Code switching, band limiting, encoding, segmentation ...
 Biometric Consortium Conference 2011 National Institute of Standards and Technology 28-SEP-11

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ANSI/NIST-ITL Standard 2011 Workshop 

Voice Record Recap

• March 1-3, 2011

• Presented voice standard development plans

– http://biometrics.nist.gov/cs_links/standard/ansi_2011/WORKSHOP/przybocki-Voice_Plans.pdf

• Established a committee dedicated to voice record development 

– Dr. Alvin Martin (NIST) agreed to chair

Purpose: Described way forward in bringing experts together to discuss 

 the nuances of speech and the attributes of speech samples that 

 would require representation in a voice standard. 

Representation: Open to all. 

 Contact NIST to be added to the mailing list.
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 Biometric Consortium Conference 2011 National Institute of Standards and Technology 28-SEP-11

Type-11 Voice Record 

Working Concepts 

• To define a Transmission Standard 

• Used to exchange voice biometric data 

– Along with textual information fields relevant to the sample 

• Targets automated voice identification and verification systems 

– Not designed for evidentiary storage – but can transmit such data 

– Not transmission of statements 

– Not for use in speech recognition systems alone 

• A record is to be about a single person 

– A recording (defined by a Type 20 record) containing Voice of multiple 

individuals may be used by multiple Type 11 records, each 

corresponding to a separate ANSI/NIST-ITL transaction 
 Biometric Consortium Conference 2011 National Institute of Standards and Technology 28-SEP-11

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Groups Working Towards a Similar Goal 

(a voice standard) 

Voice Standard Goal 

• ANSI/NIST-ITL Voice Committee 

– Biometric data exchange supporting law enforcement scenarios 

• Investigatory Voice Biometrics Committee 

– Under sponsorship by the FBI/BCOE 

– Steering Committee of US Government representatives 

– Originally charged to investigate standards options (national/international) 

– Investigate issues, make recommendations 

• Other U.S. Government agencies 

– Internal Best Practices 

• ISO 19794-13 

– Different scope - including non-Law Enforcement applications 

Other Efforts 

• Non-Forensic Standards efforts 

• Single Speaker Access Control Emphasis efforts 
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 Biometric Consortium Conference 2011 National Institute of Standards and Technology 28-SEP-11

Progress to Report 

• Discussion is occurring among interested groups: 

– Scope of a voice standard 

– Metadata appropriateness 

• Several Gov-to-Gov meetings to understand internal best practices 

– An effective standard will enhance current use cases 

– Buy-in across multiple agencies is preferred 

• The Investigatory Voice Biometrics Committee 

– Developing a proposal focusing on the voice signature - least controversial 

– Proposal to be shaped into the actual type-11 record along with possible 

requirements to modify the type 20 specification 

– Plan to distribute the proposal to all interested, soon 

Mandatory and optional fields 
 Biometric Consortium Conference 2011 National Institute of Standards and Technology 28-SEP-11

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Points Considered for the Proposal 

• Primary sources of metadata being proposed 

– Government meetings/discussions 

– Investigatory Voice Biometrics symposium reports (2009) 

• Sampling of metadata 

(case-related information in Type 2 fields) 

– How much voice in the sample? 

– How, when and where was the recording made? 

– How to present speech location(s) inside a data sample? 

– Differentiate between permanent vs. temporary speaker attributes 

– Differentiate between signal information and content information 

– Plus many, many, more 
 Biometric Consortium Conference 2011 National Institute of Standards and Technology 28-SEP-11

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Type 11 Record Development 

(way forward) 

• Transition the Investigatory Voice Biometrics proposal to the 

larger committee for comment 

– Will receive feedback as to where proposal meets/fails under 

alternative use-cases 

• Utilize NIST experts with ANSI/NIST-ITL to formalize the 

Type-11 Record 

• Expand to accommodate data collected in the wild 

• When the Type 11 record is ready it will be put forth as an 

amendment to the current version of the ANSI/NIST-ITL 

Standard

– A proposal, comment, acceptance process will follow the standard 

ANSI voting procedures 
 Biometric Consortium Conference 2011 National Institute of Standards and Technology 28-SEP-11

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Questions or More Information 

• Mark Przybocki, Multimodal Information Group 

mark.przybocki@nist.gov 

• Alvin Martin, Chair of the Type 11 Voice Committee 

alvin.martin@nist.gov 

 

http://www.nist.gov/itl/iad/mig