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Investigatory Voice Biometrics Committee Report

Development of a Draft Type-11 Voice Signal Record

09 March, 2012 

Version 1.8
2

17

18 Contents

19 Summary................................................................................................................................................................ 3

20 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................ 3

21 Investigatory Voice Committee Membership ............................................................................................................ 5

22 Definitions of Specialized Terms Used in this Document .......................................................................................... 5

23 Relationship Between the Type-11 Record and Other Record Types and Documents ............................................... 8

24 Some Types of Transactions Supported by a Type-11 Record ................................................................................. 8

25 Scope of the Type-11 Record................................................................................................................................ 10

26 Source Documents ............................................................................................................................................... 11

27 Administrative Metadata Requirements.................................................................................................................. 11

28 Speaker and Content Metadata Requirements....................................................................................................... 13

29 Audio Technology Metadata Requirements............................................................................................................ 15

30 Audit Logs ............................................................................................................................................................ 15

31 General Organization of the Type-11 Record......................................................................................................... 16

32 Draft Record Type-11: Voice signal record............................................................................................................. 17

33 1. Field 11.001: Record header.......................................................................................................... 31

34 2. Field 11.002: Information Designation Character / IDC ................................................................ 31

35 3. Field 11.003: Audio Object Descriptor/AOD .................................................................................. 31

36 4. Field 11.004: Voice Laboratory Setting/VLS ................................................................................. 32

37 5. Field 11.005: Role of Voice Recording/ROL .................................................................................. 33

38 6. Field 11.006: Recorder / REC......................................................................................................... 34

39 7. Field 11.007: Record Creation Date/RCD....................................................................................... 35

40 8. Field 11.008: Voice Recording Creation Date/VRD........................................................................ 35

41 9. Field 11.009: Total Recording Duration / TRD ............................................................................... 36

42 10. Field 11.010: Physical Media Object/ PMO .................................................................................... 36

43 11. Field 11.011: Codec/CDC ............................................................................................................... 37

44 12. Field 11.012: Preliminary Signal Quality/PSQ................................................................................ 40

45 13. Fields 11.013-020: Reserved Fields ............................................................................................... 41

46 14. Field 11.021: Redaction/ RED ........................................................................................................ 41

47 15. Field 11.022: Redaction Diary/RDD............................................................................................... 42

48 16. Field 11.023: Snipping Segmentation/ SNP.................................................................................. 42

49 17. Field 11.024: Snipping Diary/SPD................................................................................................. 43

50 18. Field 11.025: Diarization/DIA.......................................................................................................... 44

51 19. Field 11.026: Segment Diary/SGD................................................................................................. 44

52 20. Field 11.027-030: Reserved Fields ................................................................................................ 45

53 21. Field 11.031: Time of Segment Recording /TME........................................................................... 45

54 22. Field 11.032: Segment Geographical Information/GEO................................................................. 47

55 23. Field 11.033: Segment Quality Values/SQV................................................................................... 48

56 24. Field 11.034: Vocal Collision Indicator/VCI.................................................................................... 49

57 25. Field 11.035: Processing Priority /PPY.......................................................................................... 49

58 26. Field 11.036: Segment Content/SCN.............................................................................................. 50

59 27. Field 11.037: Segment Speaker Characteristics/SCC.................................................................... 50

60 28. Field 11.038: Segment Channel/SCH............................................................................................. 53

61 29. Field 11.39-050: Reserved Fields................................................................................................... 54

62 30. Field 11.051: Comments/COM........................................................................................................ 54

63 31. Fields 11.052-099: Reserved Fields ............................................................................................... 54

64 32. Fields 11.100-900: User-defined fields / UDF................................................................................. 54

65 33. Field 11.901: Reserved field........................................................................................................... 55

66 35. Field 11.993: Source agency name / SAN...................................................................................... 55

67 36. Field 11.994: External file reference / EFR..................................................................................... 55

68 38. Field 11.996: Hash/ HAS................................................................................................................. 55

69 39. Field 11.997: Source representation / SOR.................................................................................... 56

70 40. Field 11.999: Voice record / DATA................................................................................................. 56

71

72

73
 

3 

74 Summary

75

76 The idea of automated and semi-automated (human-assisted) speaker recognition for forensic 

77 and investigatory applications goes back to World War II. Considerable government monies 

78 have been spent over the intervening 70 years in developing technical approaches, speech 

79 databases and testing programs. Missing from these efforts, however, has been the development 

80 of a forensic voice recording interchange format comparable to the interchange formats that 

81 currently exist for fingerprint, palmprint, face, iris, scar/mark/tattoo, and DNA data used for the 

82 purpose of human recognition. The Investigatory Voice Biometrics Committee (IVBC) was 

83 created by the FBI in early 2011 to take on the task of initiating development of a voice 

84 recording format to allow the interchange of voice data within the ANSI/NIST ITL forensic 

85 biometric data interchange standard [1], the current de facto international standard for exchange 

86 of biometric data for law enforcement and national security applications. This document is a 

87 report on those efforts and contains the first draft of a voice recording interchange format, which 

88 will be known as a “Type-11 Voice Signal Record” within the parlance of the ANSI/NIST ITL 

89 community. The Type-11 record is modeled roughly after existing record types in the 2011 

90 version of the ANSI/NIST standard, but will allow exchange of both digital and analog data 

91 using both electronic and physical media. This Type-11 record is designed to be used within 

92 ANSI/NIST formatted transactions for law enforcement and homeland security-type speaker 

93 recognition applications. It is not designed for speaker recognition within logical or physical 

94 access control, “time-and-attendance”, point-of-sale, or other consumer applications. It is the 

95 intent of the IVBC to submit this draft into the ANSI/NIST ITL process in early 2012 as a 

96 proposed starting point for the development of a speaker recognition supplement to the existing 

97 2011 version of the standard.

98

99 Introduction

100

101 Speaker recognition presents some unique challenges not found in other forms of human 

102 recognition, such as fingerprint, iris or face. The human voice, generally carrying both speech 

103 and non-speech sounds, propagates varying distances through air to reach acoustic transducers 

104 (usually microphones) of varying amplitude and phase response. We will consider a 

105 “speaker” to be any person producing voice sounds (“vocalizations”), although with the current 

106 state of technology, speaker recognition usually requires vocalizations containing speech 

107 (linguistic content). We will also consider an automated interlocutor to be a “speaker” in this 

108 context, although such a speaker will not be the primary subject of a speaker recognition 

109 transaction.

110

111 When voice sounds carry speech, that speech usually occurs within a social context involving 

112 more than one speaker. Consequently, a speech signal collected in situ will generally contain the 

113 voices of multiple speakers, each voice signal with its own transfer function between the speaker 

114 and the transducer. Segmenting and de-conflicting overlapped voice signals (“speaker 

115 separation”) through automation is currently an unsolved problem in the general case, thus 

Comment [ 1]: General Comment (GC) 1: 

The number of "mandatory" items needs to be 

limited if it is to be used in our environment, 

since we often have no idea of most of the 

information in the record. Example - speech 

from a video that is downloaded from the 

Internet. We would normally have no info on 

what recorder was used to record it, which is 

currently noted as a mandatory item

Comment [ 2]: GC 2: I can see the value of 

this tour de force record in an LE environment, 

but here it can be hard to get analysts (myself 

included) to fill out the 20 or so pieces of 

metadata present in the DB for our SID system. 

If this record is associated with an automated 

system, that problem would be largely mitigated 

by having the machine fill out the majority of the 

record, with humans adding information 

iteratively (linguists checking/adding language 

and dialect, others adding mental state, etc.).

MARK: This appears as an editorial comment. 

Shall we record it for history in a diary and move 

on?

Comment [ 3]: General Comment 3: I presume 

that a similar record will be developed for speaker 

models. It is far more likely in the IC that models will ...

Comment [ 4]: General Comment 4: I was 

wondering whether metric units will be used where 

applicable.

Comment [ 5]: GC 5: My only question is 

whether or not it makes sense to include 

anything about the certainty associated with the 

speaker label. Suppose that we assigned a ...

Comment [ 6]: GC 6: I am not completely happy 

with presenting this document only as a format for 

speaker identification (the very beginning, Summary, 

line 76). I think it could equally serve other purposes ...

Comment [ 7]: GC 7: The document needs a list 

of abbreviations, I did not have problem with the 

technical ones, but there is another set that is related 

to the organizational schemes, data-flows, etc., and ...

Comment [ 8]: GC 8: It is not clear, where the 

information for automatic speaker recognition 

software (features, statistics, low-dimensional ...

Comment [ 9]: Is there a reason defense 

applications are not mentioned.

...

Comment [ 10]: (lacking context) .. similar to 

those used in IVR systems?

Comment [USS11]: I was hoping this wasn’t 

the only description of how speech is “unique” 

but it appears that it is. And this suggests the 

writers of the document want to portray speech ...

Comment [ 12]: The document counts on 

speaker physically producing the vocalizations 

(105). This might not be always true – think of a 

tapped conference with remote participants, where ...

Comment [ 13]: Some non-speech features 

have been used for speaker reco .. pause 

distributions in turn taking, rhythm/cadence, 

laughter and throat clearing. ...
4

116 implying that operational applications of speaker recognition technology will involve audio 

117 recordings containing multiple speakers and multiple acoustic transmission paths. 

118

119 The ANSI/NIST ITL standard was originally developed for the interchange of fingerprint data, 

120 whether collected from latent prints lifted from crime scenes, scanned off of ink-based 

121 fingerprint cards or taken directly from electronic “live” scanners. The standard, therefore, is 

122 explicitly restricted to cases where, “All records in a transaction shall pertain to a single subject”. 

123 This restriction presents special challenges for use of the standard for interchange of natural

124 voice signals, containing both speech and non-speech sounds, collected in a social, multi-speaker 

125 context and stored either digitally or in analog form and either electronically or on physical 

126 media. Therefore, a voice signal record type will have to accommodate: 1) bespoke recordings 

127 of single speaker voice signals for the specific purpose of speaker recognition; 2) conversational 

128 and interview scenario voice signals, digitized and segmented into clips, or “snips”, restricted to 

129 speech from the single speaker of interest (the voice data subject); 3) unsegmented natural voice 

130 signals on digital or analog media, with or without an accompanying timing diary of the 

131 segments attributable to speech from the single speaker of interest; 4) unannotated speech 

132 segment(s) for input to annotation work-flow tools. In all cases, the voice samples referred to in 

133 the Type-11 record must accommodate signals collected non-continuously and stored in multiple 

134 segments, a requirement that has been encountered before in other ANSI/NIST record types. 

135 For example, the Type-14 (variable-resolution fingerprint images) record has the capacity to 

136 carry multiple fingerprint samples in one image with segment boundary information for each 

137 finger in the image, albeit from a single individual, and serves as a model in this regard.

138

139 There are other challenges facing a speaker recognition standard. The most significant ones 

140 include:

141

142 • Voice signals generally contain both speech and non-speech elements, either of which 

143 might be useful in speaker recognition applications.

144 • Unlike other modalities, voice signals are collected in time, not spatial, dimensions and 

145 will not have a single “time of collection”. 

146 • In mobile applications, even a single segment of a voice signal may not be linkable to a 

147 single geographic location. 

148 • Voice signals containing speech have direct informational content. Unlike other forms of 

149 biometric recognition, the speech itself means something and, even if stripped of all 

150 personally identifiable information including the acoustic content itself, may require 

151 protection for privacy or security reasons. 

152

153 Consequently, creating a Type-11record for voice signal transmission with the ANSI/NIST ITL 

154 context is more complicated than simply copying an existing ANSI/NIST record type and 

155 changing terminology ( for example, substituting “voice” for “fingerprint” and “signal” for 

156 “image”) as has been often suggested by the standards community. In the case of DNA Type-18 

157 records, ANSI/NIST has previously shown significant flexibility in dealing with record types 

158 which carry non-spatial data with significant content beyond that required for the recognition of 

159 individuals. Consequently, we fully expect that the current ANSI/NIST structure can flex to 

160 accommodate the “nuisances” of voice.

161

162

Comment [ 14]: That is not the case for all 

operational applications, i.e., in certain 

applications you often find speakers (and 

speech) in isolation. For example, four-wire 

phone calls, interviews, propaganda videos, and 

speeches, to mention a few. (relative to two 

sections of this page)

Comment [USS15]: See above, but yes, 

overlapping speakers are an issue. However, 

this accounts for very little of the challenges 

within speaker recognition in the law 

enforcement domain.

Comment [ 16]: There are Auditory Scene 

Analysis systems (and other mic arrays) that do 

record (or estimate) speaker location or 

direction of speech sources.

And

Not always true for certain applications, it all 

depends on the communication platform or 

geocoding capabilities.

Comment [USS17]: No mention whatsoever 

of the more obvious and challenging speech 

variability concerns related to social and 

behavioral mismatch.
 

5 

163

164 Investigatory Voice Committee Membership

165

166 Joseph Campbell, MIT

167 Carson Dayley, FBI

168 Craig Greenberg, NIST

169 Peter Higgins, Consultant

170 Alysha Jeans, FBI

171 Ryan Lewis, FBI

172 Jim Loudermilk, FBI

173 Kenneth Marr, FBI

174 Alvin Martin, Consultant 

175 Hirotaka Nakasone, FBI

176 Mark Przybocki, NIST (IVBC Chair)

177 Vince Stanford, NIST

178 Pedro Torres-Carrasquillo, MIT

179 James Wayman, Consultant

180 Bradford Wing, NIST

181

182 Definitions of Specialized Terms Used in this Document

183

184 Acoustic signal

185 Pressure waves in a media with information content.

186 Note: In this document, acoustic signals will be restricted to pressure waves in air.

187

188 Audio signal

189 Information in analog or digital form that contains acoustic content (voice or otherwise), capable 

190 of being transduced into an audible acoustic signal.

191 Note: By “audible” we mean “capable of being heard by humans”. 

192

193 Contemporaneous 

194 Existing at or occurring at the same period of time.

195 Note: In this record type, the phrase “contemporaneous capture of a voice signal” indicates

196 recording of the voice signal at the time of the speaker vocalization.

197

198 Diary

199 List giving the start and stop times of speech segments of interest pertaining to the primary voice 

200 signal subject within the voice signal.

201 Note: Diarization of segments from multiple speakers requires multiple Type-11 records, 

202 one for each speaker.

203

204 Known Voice Signal

205 A voice signal from an individual who has been “identified”, or individuated in a way that allows 

206 linking to additional, available information about that individual. 

207

208 Metadata

209 Documentation about the voice signal necessary or helpful in supporting the types of speaker 

210 recognition transactions likely to be encountered in law enforcement and homeland security 

211 applications. 

212

Comment [ 18]: “pressure waves in air” does 

not take into account the usage of 

laryngophones (that are later mentioned as one 

possible type of mikes).
6

213 Physical medium

214 Any external storage material of the voice signal in either analog or digital form. Examples 

215 include reel-to-reel recording tape, cassette tape, Compact Disc, phonograph record.

216

217 Quality

218 An estimate of the usefulness of a voice signal for the purpose of speaker recognition. 

219

220 Questioned Voice Signal

221 A voice signal from an individual who is unknown and cannot currently be linked to any 

222 previously encountered individual. 

223 Note: The task of speaker identification is to link a questioned voice sample to a known 

224 voice sample so that the speaker can be linked to additional, available information.

225

226 Record (n)

227 An ANSI/NIST biometric data format type, in its entirety, within an ANSI/NIST transaction. 

228 Note 1:In this document, this will be the Type-11 record unless otherwise stated. 

229 Note 2: An ANSI/NIST transaction might contain multiple Type-11 records, as well as 

230 other record types, including the mandatory Type-1 record. In the current FBI Electronic 

231 Biometric Transmission Standard (EBTS), a transaction will also contain the mandatory 

232 Type-2 record.

233

234 Record (v)

235 The act of converting an acoustic voice signal directly from an individual into a storage media, 

236 perhaps through contemporaneous, intermediate (transient) signal types. 

237 Note: We maintain this definition because of its entrenchment in natural language use. 

238 Consequently, a record (n) is not recorded, it is created. 

239 Note: Transcoding is the term used for further processing of the voice signal and any 

240 digital or analog representation of that signal.

241

242 Record creation

243 The act of creating a Type-11 record pertaining to a voice signal(s).

244

245 Recording (n)

246 A stored acoustic signal in either analog or digital form. 

247

248 Redaction

249 Over-writing of segments of a voice signal for the purpose of masking speech content in a way 

250 that does not disrupt the time record of the original recording.

251

252 Snip (n)

253 A segment of a voice signal extracted from a larger voice signal recording. 

254 Note: Also called a “clip” in some communities.

255

256 Snip (v)

257 Extraction of segments of a voice signal in a way that disrupts the continuity and time record of 

258 the original recording.

Comment [ 19]: (lacking context) For both 

Signal Related Info and Content related info?

Comment [USS20]: I do not agree with this 

definition. A questioned voice signal is from a 

speaker that is simply unknown (or their identity 

can not be confirmed)

Comment [USS21]: I do not agree with this 

definition. The task of speaker ID is to 

determine if the questioned voice sample(s) 

shares the same source as a known voice 

sample. The last half of that definition must be 

agency specific. 

MARK: I agree and believe we can delete as 

suggested.
7

259

260 Speaker

261 A vocalizing human, whether or not the vocalizations contain speech.

262 Note: An interlocutor might be a synthesized voice, which can be considered a “speaker” 

263 within the context of this report.

264

265 Speech

266 Audible vocalizations made with the intent of communicating information through linguistic 

267 content.

268 Note 1: Nonsensical vocalizations with linguistic content will be considered as speech.

269 Note 2: Speech can be made by humans or by machine synthesizers.

270

271 Subject of the Type-11 record

272 The person to whom the voice data in the Type-11 record applies.

273 Note: Because a transaction can include Type-11 records for interlocutors and others not named 

274 as the subject of the transaction, the subject of the Type-11 record need not be the subject of the 

275 transaction.

276

277 Subject of the transaction

278 The person to whom the transaction applies.

279 Note: The primary or only speaker in a Type-11 record need not be the subject of the 

280 transaction.

281

282 Transaction 

283 A transmission between sites or agencies comprised of records, types of which are defined in the 

284 ANSI/NIST ITL 1-2011 [1]. 

285 Note: An ANSI/NIST-ITL transaction is called a file in Traditional encoding and an 

286 Exchange Package in XML encoding.

287

288 Transcoding 

289 Any transfer, compression, manipulation, re-formatting or re-storage of the original recorded 

290 material.

291 Note 1: Transcoding is not the first recording of the acoustic signal. 

292 Note 2: Transcoding can be lossless or lossy.

293

294 Voice data file

295 The digital, encoded file primarily containing the sounds of vocalizations of both speech and 

296 non-speech content, convertible to an acoustic signal replicating the original acoustic signal. 

297 Note 1: A voice data file is extracted from an audio signal, but not all audio signals contains 

298 voice data and not all voice data is speech.

299 Note 2: A physical medium, such as a cassette tape, contains a voice signal but is not a 

300 voice data file.

301

302 Voice recording

303 A signal, stored on a digital or analog medium, of vocalizations containing both speech and non304 speech content.

Comment [ 22]: (lacking context of where on 

page) Are you prescribing particular methods?

MARK: the answer is surely no. We should 

check if this page is giving that perception.

Comment [ 23]: -speech can also be produced by 

replay devices, not just by humans or synthesizers 

(see my comment #3 above) 

MARK: Should we replace “or by machine 

synthesizers” with “or by other means”
 

8 

305

306 Voice signal subject

307 The single speaker of interest in the Type-11 record. 

308 Note 1: This may not be the subject of the transaction. 

309 Note 2: The voice signal subject may be known or unknown.

310 

311 Relationship Between the Type-11 Record and Other Record 

312 Types and Documents

313

314 A Type-11 record would never be used in isolation, but would be placed in the context of an 

315 ANSI/NIST ITL transaction, which would by necessity contain at least the mandatory Type-1 

316 record. A single ANSI/NIST transaction might contain several Type-11 records: for example, 

317 one or more Type-11 records of “Known” voice signals perhaps from different individuals and 

318 one or more Type-11 records with “Questioned” signals. In an FBI EBTS transaction, there will 

319 be a separate Type-2 record for the “Questioned” and each “Known” speaker. Further, the 

320 specifics of the implementation of the standard to support various types of transactions between 

321 agencies, including the mapping of subjects identified in Type-2 records to their roles in voice 

322 recordings, would be specified in “exchange agreements”, such as the Electronic Biometric 

323 Transmission Specification (EBTS) [2] used by the FBI and DOD. The EBTS specifies by Type 

324 of Transaction (TOT) which fields and record types will be mandatory and which optional. 

325

326 The Type-11 record will also utilize the new Type-20 record included in the 2011 version of 

327 ANSI/NIST ITL. Type-20 is a broadly defined record type for unedited and unmodified source 

328 data from which data subject-specific, segmented biometric data can be derived. The Type-11 

329 record can take advantage of the availability of the Type-20 records as a method for transmitting 

330 unedited or unmodified voice signals when in digital form.

331

332 For EBTS users, development of the Type-11 record must take place within the context of the 

333 existing Type-1, Type-2 and Type-20 records and the current EBTS, all of which are living 

334 documents subject to modification. Domains of interest, such as the Criminal Justice 

335 Information Services Division of the FBI (CJIS), may in the future update their EBTS 

336 specification to reflect use of Type-11 records within their domains.

337

338 This report of the IVBC contains no information about recording or transmission “best 

339 practices”, although we acknowledge the extreme importance of these issues. It is the intention 

340 of the committee to develop such documents in the future. 

341

342 Some Types of Transactions Supported by a Type-11 Record

343

344 The IVBC considered various types of voice signal transactions currently supported and 

345 anticipated by the FBI. The committee recommends that the current FBI EBTS document be 

346 updated to support these voice signal transactions. This committee also recommends that a best 

347 practices document for use by the FBI EBTS community of interest be developed describing how 

Comment [ 24]: (lacking context of where on 

page) What are these? Because of storage 

constraints?
9

348 to use Type-11 and other record types for commonly expected scenarios of operation. This work 

349 can be accomplished at a speed determined appropriate by EBTS community. A partial list of 

350 potential “types of transactions” (TOTs) would be:

351

352 1.Voice model creation and storage for a known speaker

353 2.Voice model creation and storage for an unknown speaker.

354 3.Comparison of the speakers in two audio recordings.

355 4.Comparison of the voice in an audio recording to the voice models from a list of known 

356 speakers.

357 5.Converting an analog audio recording into digitized voice data file(s).

358 6.Duplicating or transcoding an audio recording.

359 7.Finding and isolating voice signals in an audio recording.

360 8.Finding and isolating speech signals within an audio recording.

361 9.Determination of the distinct speakers in an audio recording.

362 10. Indexing an audio recording into voice segments attributable to distinct speakers.

363 11. Creation of a diary, attributing speech segments to a speaker of interest.

364 12. Creation of word or phone level transcriptions, in the language spoken, of segments of 

365 speech attributable to a single speaker.

366 13. Redaction of an audio recording to remove sensitive speech segments.

367 14. Snipping of an audio recording to remove segments of non-speech, speech not 

368 attributable to the subject of interest, or speech not of interest to the transaction.

369 15. Enhancing the speech segments in an audio recording for return to the submitting agency 

370 for use in human-assisted or automated speaker recognition applications.

371 16. Authentication of an audio recording as containing the continuous speech of a single 

372 speaker without deletions or insertions.

373 17. Transfer voice recording to an archive for permanent storage. 

374

375 The above list of potential “TOTs” will have to be further refined to determine which transaction 

376 types require responses from the receiving agency and which do not.

377

378 The Type-1 record within an ANSI/NIST transaction contains Field 1.004 for specifying the 

379 TOT – the purpose for which the transaction was generated. This field may be left blank in an 

380 ANSI/NIST transaction to indicate that the submitting agency is asking for a transaction type not 

381 formally listed. 

382

383 This voice signal record type must support all of these transactions originating from submitting 

384 agencies with little or no capability in digitizing audio signals or in speech analysis, as well as 

385 inter- and intra-laboratory transmissions on fully or partially processed voice recordings. 

386 Further, the type of transactions ultimately to be performed on the voice recording might not be 

387 fully known at the time the Type-11 record is created. Therefore, the voice recordings referred 

388 to in the record must be accompanied by documentation, when available, to support a very wide 

389 variety of potential transactions. In this report, this documentation will be referred to as 

390 “metadata” and will be of four basic types:

391

392 • Administrative metadata: who initiated the transaction, why and with what authority?

Comment [ 25]: (lacking context) This issue 

should be addressed given collections in place 

and planned.

Comment [ 26]: -the storage does not need to be 

permanent – it can be well mandated to store it for a 

limited time. 

MARK: This is a partial list so I think we can delete 

the comment (record in a diary) and move on.

Comment [USS27]: Characterization of the 

social/behavioral dynamic in the recording, i.e: 

accommodation, interlocutor issues 

(authoritative dynamic between speaker and 

interlocutor), etc.

MARK: This comment is asking for us to add to 

our partial list.
 

10

393 • Speaker metadata: what is known about the speaker of interest and their physical and 

394 psychological condition at the time of the speech? 

395 • Content metadata: what language is being spoken, when was the original content spoken 

396 under what conditions, and what content information is available that might help in the 

397 speaker recognition process?

398 • Audio technology metadata: how was the voice signal collected, stored and processed and 

399 what technical parameters will help in the faithful reproduction and analysis of the signal 

400 within the storage medium?

401

402 Some of this metadata, such as the time and date of the original recording, might only be known 

403 from external sources. Some of the metadata, such as the language being spoken, might be 

404 discernible from the voice recording itself. Much of the metadata might not be known or 

405 available to the various agencies creating the audio recording, the Type-11 record and the

406 ANSI/NIST transaction. All of the metadata, however, could be useful in the processing of the 

407 audio recording given the potential for widely varying transactions and should be made readily 

408 available to the receiving agency without requiring the reprocessing of the audio recording. 

409 Consequently, our goal is to create as many non-redundant metadata fields as possible to permit 

410 transmission of documentation of potential future interest, even if the metadata could potentially 

411 be recovered from the audio recording itself. Most of these fields will be optional because much 

412 of the potentially relevant metadata may be unknown to the various agencies involved in the 

413 transaction. 

414

415 Scope of the Type-11 Record

416

417 This record type is intended to support the transmission of audio recordings containing speech by 

418 one or more speakers and noise (data of no interest to the transaction, whether speech, non419 speech voice data, or non-voice data) for forensic and investigatory purposes in the context of an 

420 ANSI/NIST ITL transaction pertaining to a single, perhaps unknown, individual. These 

421 transmissions are intended to support transactions related to detecting and recognizing speakers, 

422 extracting from an audio recording speech segments attributable to a single speaker, and linking 

423 speech segments by speaker, whether these functions are to be accomplished through automated 

424 means (computers), human experts, or hybrid human-assisted systems. Related functions, such 

425 as redaction, authentication, phonetic transcription and enhancement, while also supported, are 

426 not the primary concern of this record type, although audio recordings supporting these related 

427 functions may be transmitted via Type-11 records. This record type is not designed for use in 

428 logical or physical access control, “time-and-attendance”, “point-of-sale”, or other consumer or 

429 commercial applications, and does not support streaming transactions. This record does not 

430 define the transmission of features or models extracted from voice data. This record type does 

431 not restrict the media by which the audio recording will be transmitted, but will support digital 

432 transmission of transaction information regardless of the audio recording media. A best practices 

433 document for voice recording will be created in a future effort.

434 

Comment [ 28]: (Lacking Context of where in 

page – now just (LC!)) Are you prescribing 

particular (approved/suggested methods?

Mark: The answer is surely no.
 

11

435 Source Documents

436

437 1.ANSI/NIST ITL 1-2011, “Data Format for the Interchange of Fingerprint, Facial & Other 

438 Biometric Information”, NIST Special Publication 500-290, November, 2011

439 2. “Electronic Biometric Transmission Specification”, Criminal Justice Information Services

440 Division, IAFIS-DOC 01078-9.2, 9 December, 2011

441 3.Collaborative Digitization Program, Digital Audio Working Group, “Digital Audio Best 

442 Practices”, version 2.1, October, 2006, 

443 http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/systems/digitalinitiatives/docs/digital-audio-bp.pdf 

444 4.Audio Engineering Society, “AES standard for audio metadata - Audio object structures 

445 for preservation and restoration”, AES57-2011, Sept. 21, 2011

446 5.Audio Engineering Society, “AES standard for audio metadata -Core audio metadata”, 

447 AES60-2011, Sept. 22, 2011

448

449 Administrative Metadata Requirements 

450

451 The IVBC identified the following requirements for administrative metadata for transactions 

452 containing audio data: 

453

454 Requirement 1: Point-of-Contact (POC) Name

455 Requirement 2: Agency 

456 Requirement 3: Phone number

457 Requirement 4: Originating agency case ID

458 Requirement 5: Transaction ID

459 Requirement 6: Embed Case ID

460 Requirement 7: Email address of submitter

461 Requirement 8: Alternative POC

462 Requirement 9: User defined fields, such as “FBI/non-FBI case” 

463

464 The above information is required to promote traceability of the audio data. There are at least

465 three levels of traceability – to the submitting, compiling/post-processing and collecting

466 agencies. It is possible for all three agencies to be the same in some transactions, but they will 

467 often be different. 

468

469 The submitting agency is one approved to submit a transaction to a receiving agency for the 

470 processing requested in the “Type of Transaction” (TOT) field within the Type-1 record. 

471 Within the ANSI/NIST structure, the submitting agency is denoted in a Type-1 field, Field 1.008 

472 (Originating Agency/ORI), which contains the identifying number of the agency that served as a 

473 channel for the request to the receiving agency for processing. The name is contained in Field 

474 1.017 Agency Names/ANM, information item originating agency name/OAN. Other record 

475 Types also include Fields XX.004 (Submitting Agency/SRC) and XX.993 (Source agency name 

476 / SAN). Within the U.S. law enforcement domain of interest, the relevant EBTSs establish that 

477 ORI must be from an National Crime Information Center (NCIC)-authorized agency. 

478

Comment [ 29]: Would this include speakerspecific traits, e.g. speech impediments, accent, 

dialect or any other salient feature?
12

479 Type-18 (DNA) contains a more comprehensive Field 18.003 (DNA Laboratory Setting/DLS) 

480 that will serve as a model for metadata on the lab or agency that created the voice recording.

481

482 As defined in the FBI EBTS (not in the ANSI/NIST ITL document itself), the agency that 

483 compiled the raw data into a search transaction is identified in the Type-2 field, 2.073 

484 (Controlling Agency Identifier/CRI). By FBI EBTS, the CRI itself has three levels and the ORI 

and top-level CRI are usually the same1 485 . 

486

487 The collecting agency is not specified in either Type-1 or Type-2 (as defined by EBTS) records. 

488 The original source of the voice recording, which might be a local law enforcement office, 911 

489 call center, or other non-law enforcement group, will be included specifically within the Type-11 

490 record as Field 11.004 (Voice Laboratory Setting/VLS), modeled after Field 18.003 (DNA 

491 Laboratory Setting/DLS) and after Field 19.004 (Plantar images: source agency/SRC)

492

493 We can map these three levels as follows.

494 Submitting agency – ORI Field 1.008; ANM_OAN Field 1.017

495 Compiling agency – CRI Field 2.073

496 Collecting agency – VLS Field 11.004; SAN Field 11.993

497

498 This complex system is used where a county / city has an AFIS that submits to the state and in 

499 turn submitted by the state to the FBI. All of this structure will have to be re-thought for voice 

500 and policies established. 

501

502 So, with regard to the specific metadata requirements identified above by the IVBC, in FBI503 centric applications:

504

505 Response to requirement 1: Although neither the current Type-1 nor the FBI EBTS-defined 

506 Type-2 records allow for inclusion of the agency responsible for the collection of an audio or 

507 voice recording, this information is included in the Type-19 record field 19.004. Information 

508 about the specific individual or individuals responsible for the collection and serving as a Point 

509 of Contact will be a subfield of Field 11.004. Type-19 Field 19.004 contains additional 

510 information about the original source (agency, non-agency) of the data, including multiple 

511 subfields about the source. So for voice, Field 11.004 would contain data about the original 

512 source and well as the information identified in Administrative Metadata Requirement1 above.

513

514 Response to requirement 2: By FBI EBTS definition, the originating agency case ID is Field 

515 2.009 and thus does not have to be defined as part of the Type-11 record.

516

517 Response to requirement 3: Phone number of the original source would be an additional subfield 

518 of 11.004

519

 1 The only time these would be different in an FBI EBTS-based transaction is for a user that is authorized by the 

State Identification Bureau (SIB) to submit friction ridge searches directly to CJIS without passing through the state

system. In this case the ORI would be for the state, while the top-level CRI would be for the agency directly 

submitting the transaction

Comment [ 30]: (LC) and (deleted) an 

(inserted)

Comment [ 31]: AFIS not explained. Expand 

and add to list of abbreviations.

MARK: We can do this.
 

13

520 Response to requirements 4 and 5: Transaction ID is Field 1.009 Transaction control 

521 number/TCN. This can be the case ID of the originating agency. Additionally, Type-1 Field 

522 1.010 Transaction control reference / TCR may be used to reference the TCN of a previous 

523 transaction involving an inquiry or other action that required a response. 

524

525 Response to requirement 6: Provision for embedding an FBI file number is made by the FBI 

526 EBTS in Field 2.003. Field 2.012 is for the “FBI Latent Case Number”. These numbers are in a 

527 format controlled by the FBI Latent fingerprint Section, a corollary set of numbers will have to 

528 be established for voice records. Outside of the Type-11 record, the various EBTS controlling 

529 authorities will have to add a fieled for voice cases. 

530

531 Response to requirement 7: As there is no provision currently within Type-1 for an email 

532 address or alternate POC. However, Field 18.003 contains parallel information about the DNA 

533 laboratory processing the data. For voice, this information would be placed in subfields of 

534 11.004. 

535

536 Response to requirement 8: An alternate point of contact can be specified in a subfield of 11.004.

537

538 Response to requirement 9: The record type will accommodate user defined fields as defined in 

539 exchange agreements. 

540

541 Also included in Type-1 is Field 1.006, which gives a priority (an integer 1...9) by the 

542 originating agency for the processing of the data. The lower the number, the higher the priority,

543 as per the ANSI/NIST Standard. This field will be of interest in voice data transactions. 

544 Receiving laboratories will have to provide guidance on their priority schema, perhaps in the 

545 appropriate EBTS. 

546

547 The security classification of both data and metadata is a concern for all ANSI/NIST record 

548 types and is being addressed by US government committees through the use of a uniform 

549 “wrapper” to the records to identify classification level. Consequently, security classification 

550 issues will not be addressed in this document.

551

552 Speaker and Content Metadata Requirements

553

554 The IVBC has identified some of the requirements for metadata about the data subject and the 

555 subject’s speech, which are listed below. We recognize that the distinction between “permanent” 

556 and “temporary” attributes might be elusive in many cases.

557

558 1.Identifier

559 2.Permanent Attributes 

560 a. gender 

Comment [ 32]: Field.

MARK: Corrected

Comment [ 33]: body height could be listed 

as another permanent speaker attribute. As is 

known from the literature, correlations between 

body height and acoustic properties such as 

formant frequencies are not impressive, but not 

fully absent either. If body height information 

can be obtained I think it should be stored 

because it can prove useful (probably more so 

in voice profiling than in voice comparison).

MARK: Body Height is not permanent.
14

b. accent2 561

562 c. date of birth

563 d. native language

564 e. educational level (may not be permanent)

565 f. primary location where they grew up

566 g.speech impediment (may be intermittent) 

567 3.Temporary attributes

568 a. Impairment/intoxication

569 b.Language being spoken

570 c. Health status

571 d.Intelligibility 

572 e. Style (public speech, conversation, read, prompted, interview, other)

573 f. Emotional state/vocal effort

574 g.Citizenship

575

576 In the case of voice data records belonging to the subject of the transaction, three of these items 

577 are already included in EBTS-defined Type-2 fields: identifier (name) –2.018; gender(sex) –

578 2.024; date of birth – 2.022; citizenship -- 2.021.

579

580 In the case of voice data records of persons not the subject of the transaction, additional Type-2 

581 records will be added to the transaction, but without altering the requirement that the transaction 

582 as a whole must pertain to a single subject.

583

584 The ANSI/NIST ITL standard states that Type-2 Fields 2.003 and above are user defined fields. 

585 “Individual fields shall conform to the specifications set forth by the agency to which the

586 transmission is being sent....” This implies that we might specify additional speaker metadata 

587 requirements as specific Type-2 fields to be added to the existing fields defined in the 

588 appropriate EBTS specifications. However, there is also precedence in Type-18 (DNA) for 

589 donor specific information the field 18.006. A logical approach would be to place the permanent 

590 attributes of the speaker into Type-2 fields and place the temporary attributes as subfields 

591 because those attributes are only pertinent to the transaction at hand. Consequently, we could 

592 put:

593

594 2. X00 NL native language

595 2.X01 EL educational level

596 2.X02 UP geographical location of first 12 years of life

597 2.X03 SI speech impairment

598

599 within the Type-2 record definition of the FBI EBTS document, while defining the remaining 

600 speaker and content metadata as fields within the Type-11 record.

601

602 The current EBTS has a field (2.037 RFP) assigned for “reason fingerprinted”. Several 

603 implementations of the ANSI/NIST standard (e.g., the Afghan EBTS) have simply changed this 

 2 Although this was an original requirement of the IVBC, we have been unable to find a metric or a means 

of codification of “accent”.

Comment [USS34]: “Accent” or dialect is by 

no means a permanent attribute.

Comment [ 35]: There can be more 

complicated language acquisition 

biographies than just one first language (L1) 

and one second language (L2). An example 

from our casework is a speaker who grew up in 

Russia (L1 Russian), came to Germany as a 

young adult (L2 Germany, with fluent but slightly 

accented German), and spoke English in the

speech samples (L3 “school”-English, nonfluent 

with a pretty bad accent). Other examples are 

Arabic (L1), Dutch (L2), German (L3) or Kurdish 

(L1), Turkish (L2), German (L3). Maybe there is 

a more flexible way to specify language 

biographies in the permanent speaker attribute 

list than is possible in the current scheme.

MARK: Is this an example of specific 

information that the record should allow to be 

captured in a freeform notes section?

Comment [USS36]: The correct term is 

“speech pathology” or “impairment” but this is 

not necessarily permanent either and brings up 

a whole host of issues about how a pathology is 

even defined.

Comment [ 37]: – Temporary attributes – we 

had a seminar of Dr. Svobodova, a Czech 

forensic expert and she told us a story about a 

heavily schizophrenic person that had also two 

speaker characteristics different to such extent 

that it fooled her as well as other experts. I’m 

asking myself if it would make sense to add a 

field “personality” to 11.037 or if it is so rare that 

it could be left to COM field ...

MARK: Too rare. Leave for comment.

Comment [ 38]: voice disguise is a category that 

I see missing from the list of temporary attributes. I 

know, it’s a difficult category because there can be 

many types of voice disguise (e.g. changing the 

voice source to falsetto; changing the filter with lip 

rounding or insertion of objects in the mouth; 

imitating different dialects or foreign accents; 

distorting speech rhythm; using technical voicechanging devices or software) and because it might 

not be easy to detect whether voice disguise took 

place at all. Yet, voice disguise is a typically forensic 

type of phenomenon and has regularly been 

discussed in the literature (though from our 

experience it is not all too common, occurring in 

perhaps five to ten percent of the cases). If you 

decide to include voice disguise in field 11.037 (pp. 

50-52), I can give you some more input. A recent 

survey of voice disguise is presented by Eriksson 

(2010). ...

Comment [ 39]: Temporary Attributes (Line 

567) – What about adding dialect to this section 

(possibly as part of line 569)?

MARK: Second vote for dialect to be 

“temporary”

Comment [USS40]: Smoker or not, fatigue 

(possibly under health status), interlocutor 

effects, are very important under this heading
 

15

604 field to “reason enrolled”. The current FBI CJIS EBTS still uses fingerprints as identity 

605 foundations. The submittal of facial images from known collections, for instance, are always 

606 coupled with a set of fingerprints to ensure the facial image is linked to the correct FBI number. 

607 It is anticipated that many, if not all, voice submittals will not include fingerprints. Consequently, 

608 we could define within the FBI EBTS: 

609

610 2.X04 RE reason enrolled

611

612 This field might additionally be used to contain the legal justification (i.e., Title III Omnibus 

613 Crime Control and Safe Street Act of 1968; Title 50 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 

614 of 1978) for the existence of the voice data record. Alternatively, the Type-21 record could be 

615 used to contain the necessary legal documents, such as court orders, supporting the recording. 

616 Audio Technology Metadata Requirements

617

618 The IVBC has identified the following requirements for metadata about the audio technology 

619 used to record the voice data: 

620

621 1. Overall/Preliminary signal quality

622 2. Duration measured in seconds

623 3. Duration measured in samples

624 4. Encoding 

625 5. Sampling rate

626 6. Bit depth (may be encoding dependent)

627 7. Recording (conversion of temporary to permanent storage)

628 8. Time/date of recording

629 9. Where recorded

630 10. Type of recorder

631 11. Make/model/serial number

632 12. Transducer characteristics

633 13. Transducer type: array, earbud, wire, microphone, handset, speaker phone,...

634 14. Channel information

635

636 All of these elements would most naturally become fields and subfields within the Type-11 

637 record and have been included in the following draft.

638

639 Audit Logs

640

641 The Record Type-98, “Information assurance record”, allows special data protection procedures 

642 to ensure the integrity of the transmitted data and allows for the maintenance of an audit log. 

643 Field 98.900 (Audit log / ALF) may be used to indicate how and why a transaction was 

644 modified. The ALF is of particular use when a transaction is sent from one location to a second, 

645 where additional information is included, before sending the transaction to a final destination for 

646 processing. In the case of a voice recording, the ALF will be used to indicate how and why 

Comment [ 41]: Are you considering 

naitiveness and proficiency in the spoken 

language as well?
 

16

647 redaction, snipping and diarization information was created or edited. See ANSI/ NIST ITL 

648 2011, Section 8.22.

649

650 An example might be that a local police lab sends a transaction with multiple Type-11 records, 

651 containing voice signals of both known and unknown persons, to the appropriate FBI Field 

652 Office (FO) where additional information would be added, such as an FBI file number. The FO 

653 might also redact case-sensitive speech from the voice recordings referenced in the Type-11 

654 records before sending the transaction to another FBI forensic unit for additional redaction. The 

655 forensic unit would then forward the updated transaction to the FBI Forensic Audio, Video and 

656 Image Analysis Unit (FAVIAU). FAVIAU might create diaries of the questioned voice samples 

657 in the Type-11 records, indicating which segments were from the speaker of interest, as recorded 

658 in a known voice sample in additional Type-11 records. The diaries might be revised after 

659 additional supervisory review. All of this would be documented in a Type-98 record included in 

660 the evolving transaction. 

661

662 In contrast to the Type-98 record, which presents an audit log at the level of the entire 

663 transaction, Field 11.902, which is modeled after XX.902 fields in other record types, provides 

664 an audit log at the level of the Type-11 record. Field 11.902 lists the operations, such as 

665 redaction, snipping or diarization, performed on the original voice recording in order to prepare it 

666 for inclusion in the record type. See Section 7.4.1 of the ANSI/NIST ITL standard. 

667

668 General Organization of the Type-11 Record

669

670 The Type-11 record is organized into 6 parts: I) mandatory fields; II) initial global fields, 

671 applying to the entire voice data record; III) indication of presence and definition of segments 

672 within the voice data record; IV) fields applying to the individual segments; V) additional global 

673 fields modeled on other Types in the ANSI/NIST standard; VI) fields containing or pointing to 

674 the voice recording.

675

676 I. Mandatory fields:

677 01 Record header

678 02 Information designation character

679 II. The initial global fields are: 

680 03 Audio object descriptor (internal or external digital file, external physical media

681 containing digital/analog/unknown recording) 

682 04 Voice laboratory setting (source of the voice recording, phone numbers and POCs) 

683 05 Role of voice recording (known sample, unknown single speaker, unknown multiple 

684 speakers)

685 06 Recorder (hardware/software)

686 07 Type-11 record creation date

687 08 Voice recording creation date

688 09 Total signal duration

689 10 Physical media object (tape, CD, phonograph record,...)

690 11 Codec 

691 12 Preliminary signal quality (multiple quality metrics possible)
 

17

692 13-20 Fields reserved for future use

693 III. The presence and definition of segments within the audio file follow. 

694 21 Redaction (yes/no, by whom?)

695 22 Redaction diary (where and why redaction occurred)

696 23 Snipping (yes/no, by whom?)

697 24 Snipping diary (separate snips/clips are numbered and identified by relative start/end 

698 times, comments)

699 25 Diarization (yes/no, by whom?)

700 26 Segment diary (segments are numbered with relative start/end times, labels of attributes 

701 attributed to the speech and speaker of each segment, and comments.) 

702 27-30 Reserved for future use

703 IV. Repeating sets of sub-fields labeled by segment numbers as designated in the diarization. (If the 

704 segment number is "0", that becomes the default for all segments not otherwise listed.)

705 31 Date/time of recording of segment/snip and labeled date/time of recording

706 32 Geolocation of data subject of this Type-11 record at start of segment/snip

707 33 Segment/snip quality values (possible multiple values for each segment)

708 34 Vocal collision indicator (two or more persons speaking at once)

709 35 Processing priority of the segment/snip

710 36 Segment content (language, prompted/read/conversation, word transcript, phonetic 

711 transcript, translations)

712 37 Segment/snip speaker characteristics (impairment, intelligibility, health, emotion, vocal 

713 effort, vocal style)

714 38 Segment channel (transducer, capture environment, channel type)

715 39-50 Fields reserved for future use

716 V. More global fields modeled on other record types in ANSI/NIST ITL 2011:

717 51 Global comments

718 52 – 901 Fields reserved for future use

719 902 Annotation information

720 903 Device Unique Identifier

721 904 Make/Model/Serial

722 905-992 Fields reserved for future use

723 993 Source Agency Name

724 VI. The voice recording or pointers to that recording: 

725 994 External file reference

726 995 Associated context (Type 21 record)

727 996 Voice data file hash Editor’s note: Data integrity on the entire file is handled with a 

728 Type-98 record

729 997 Source representation (Type 20 record with original audio)

730 998 Field reserved for future use

731 999 Voice data file

732

733 Draft Record Type-11: Voice signal record

734

735 The Type-11 record shall be used to exchange a single voice data file or a physical medium 

736 containing a digital or analog voice recording, together with fixed and user-defined textual 
 

18

737 information fields (referred to in this standard as “metadata”) pertinent for understanding and 

738 processing the voice signal. 

739

740 A voice signal is defined in this standard as any audible vocalizations emanating from the human 

741 mouth with or without speech content. The Type-11 record will reference a recording of a voice 

742 signal stored as a digital voice data file within the record or external to the record. Information 

743 regarding the encoding type, the voice data file size, and other parameters or comments required 

744 to process the voice data file are given as fields within the Type-11 record. If the Type-11 record 

745 references a voice recording contained in a physical medium (i.e., an analog tape, a digital tape, a 

746 CD, a phonograph record), the label and location of that medium shall be indicated in this Type747 11 record, along with the information necessary to render the stored recording as acoustic output. 

748

749 A transmitted voice recording may be processed by the recipient agencies to isolate the voice 

750 signal of interest and to extract the desired feature or model information required for voice 

751 comparison, speaker detection, or speech attribution purposes. 

752

753 A single ANSI/NIST transaction might contain multiple voice recordings, each as a separate 

754 Type-11 record within the transaction. Although the transaction pertains to a single person, the 

755 individual voice recordings in each of the Type-11 records required for the transaction may 

756 contain the speech of multiple speakers. For each known speaker in the recording, there should 

757 be a Type-2 record in the transaction.

758

759 If there are multiple speakers of interest in a voice recording supported by a Type-11 record, then

760 a separate ANSI/NIST-ITL transaction may be created for each individual of interest, each 

761 transaction possibly containing the same Type-11 records. If the voice recording included in or 

762 pointed to by a Type-11 record has been extracted from a longer source recording, that source 

763 recording may be included in digital form within the transaction as a Type-20 record. Voice 

764 models or features extracted from voice data are not explicitly accommodated in this record, but 

765 may be transmitted in user-defined fields.

766 

767 Table Sup:Voice 1 Type-11 record layout

768 Key for Character type: N=Numeric; A=Alphabetic; AN=Alphanumeric; B=Binary or Base64

769 Key for Cond. code: M=Mandatory; O=Optional; D = Dependent upon another value or condition described in the text; 

770 M↑=Mandatory if the field/subfield is used; O↑=Optional if the field/subfield is used.

Field Mnemonic Content Cond Character Value Occurrenc

Number Description code Constraints e

T M M M M

y I a I a

p n x n x

e # # # #

11.001 RECORD HEADER M

encoding specific: see 

Annex B: Traditional

encoding or Annex C: 

NIEM-conformant 

encoding rules

encoding 

specific: see 

Annex B: 

Traditional 

encoding or 

Annex C: NIEM1 1

Comment [ 42]: for physical media (such as 

phonograph record), it should be precisely 

defined what is “time zero” – needed for diaries. 

Or it should me mandatory to convert the record 

to digital form before specifying any timing ...

Comment [ 43]: -many types of values for fields 

are not in the header of the table: U (user defined?), 

NS (number sequence?), H (hexa) etc. 
 

19

Field Mnemonic Content Cond Character Value Occurrenc

Number Description code Constraints e

T M M M M

y I a I a

p n x n x

e # # # #

conformant 

encoding rules

INFORMATION 0 < IDC < 99 11.002 IDC DESIGNATION M N 1 2 1 1 integer CHARACTER

AUDIO OBJECT See Table 11-1 11.003 AOD M N 1 1 1 1 Com

DESCRIPTOR 1 < AOD < 4 cavity

VOICE 

VLS LABORATORY O 0 1

SETTING 

LTY = G, I, P, O or LTY lab type O↑ A 1 1 0 1 U

11.004 name of original NOO O↑ U 1 400 none 0 1 source

POC point of contact O↑ U 1 200 none 0 1

code of sending value from CSC O↑ A 1 3 0 1 country ISO-3166-1

ROLE OF VOICE See Table 11.2 11.005 ROL M N 1 2 1 1 RECORDING 0 < ROL < 99

REC RECORDER M 1 1

RTP recorder type O U 1 4000 none 0 1

MAK recorder make O U 1 50 none 0 1

MOD recorder model O U 1 50 none 0 1

11.006 SER recorder serial number O U 1 50 none 0 1

value from Table 

83 except for 1 

AQS acquisition source M AN 1 2 through 6 1 1 

inclusive or 11; 

or AQS = MS

COM comment O U 1 4000 none 0 1

ment [ 44]: (LC) Are you taking the nasal 

 into account?
 

20

Field Mnemonic Content Cond Character Value Occurrenc

Number Description code Constraints e

T M M M M

y I a I a

p n x n x

e # # # #

See Section 7.7.2.4 

Local date and See Section 7.7.2.4 Local time; encoding date and time; encoding specific: see Annex RECORD specific: see Annex B: 11.007 RCD M B: Traditional 1 1 CREATION DATE Traditional encoding or encoding or Annex Annex C: NIEM- C: NIEM- conformant encoding rules conformant 

encoding rules

See Section 7.7.2.4 

Local date and See Section 7.7.2.4 Local time; encoding date and time; encoding VOICE specific: see Annex specific: see Annex B: 11.008 VRD RECORDING O B: Traditional 0 1 Traditional encoding or CREATION DATE encoding or Annex Annex C: NIEM- C: NIEM- conformant encoding rules conformant 

encoding rules

TOTAL 

TRD RECORDING O 0 1 

DURATION

1 < TIM < 

99999999999999 TIM total time O↑ N 1 14 0 1 (in microseconds)

11.009 (no commas)

1 < CBY < 

CBY compressed bytes O↑ N 1 14 99999999999999 0 1 

(no commas)

1 < SMP < 

SMP total samples O↑ N 1 14 99999999999999 0 1 

(no commas)

PHYSICAL MEDIA PMO D 0 1 OBJECT

0 ( 0 is O↑ – for O 1 MTP media type convener U 1 300 none 1 would be - M↑ ? 11.010 for M) C

co

co 0.9999999 < RSP < 

999999999

value may include RSP recording speed O↑ NS 1 9 0 1 a decimal point or 

be an integer 

(no commas)

o

nd

nv

mment [ 45]: -MTP – this filed should be 

itionally mandatory. I agree with the green 

ener’s note in lines 945 and following ones. 
 

21

Field Mnemonic Content Cond Character Value Occurrenc

Number Description code Constraints e

T M M M M

y I a I a

p n x n x

e # # # #

O↑

RSU recording speed units Convene A 1 300 none 0 1 

r - D ?

EQ equalization O↑ AN 1 100 none 0 1

TRK tracks O↑ N 1 2 1 ≤ TRK ≤ 99 0 1 Co

MA values between 1 

and 99 inclusive SPT speaker track O↑ NS 1 200 0 99 that are separated 

by commas

COM comments O↑ U 1 4000 none 0 1

CDC CODEC D 0 1

O↑ 0 Convene see external CDT codec type N 1 3 Convene 1 r Tble of Codecs Co r: 1 ? M↑ ? ma

0 < SRT < 100 

expressed in MHz SRT sampling rate O↑ N 1 2 0 1 positive integer 11.011 Co 0 = variable bit r

rate

0 < BIT < 60 -11.

BIT bit depth O↑ N 1 2 positive integer 0 1 case

0 = variable ste

NCH number of channels O↑ N 1 2 1 < NCH < 99 0 1

COM comment D U 1 4000 none 0 1

PRELIMINARY PSQ O 0 1 SIGNAL QUALITY

Subfields: Repeating 

sets of information 1 9 

items 11.012

0 < QVU < 100 or

QVU = 255

QVU quality value M↑ N 1 3 (quality not 1 1 

assessed)

Integer

mment [ 46]: - TRK – correct typo in ‘tracks’.

RK: corrected.

mment [ 47]: -should contain a field for codec 

ate – for example, G726 allows for several bits. 

011 should contain a field for Endianedness in 

 of Linear PCM – I have seen so many errors 

mming from wrong order of bytes ... 

mment [ 48]: should be conditionally 

ndatory
 

22

Field Mnemonic Content Cond Character Value Occurrenc

Number Description code Constraints e

T M M M M

y I a I a

p n x n x

e # # # #

algorithm vendor 0000 < QAV < QAV M↑ H 4 4 1 1 identification FFFF

algoorithm product M↑ 0 < QAP < 65534 QAP N 1 5 1 1 identification positive integer

COM comments D U 1 300 none 0 1

RESERVED FOR 11.013-- FUTURE USE only 11.020 by ANSI/NIST-ITL

RED REDACTION O 0 1 

0=no 11.021 RDI redaction indicator M↑ B 1 1 1 1 1=yes

RDA redaction authority O↑ U 1 300 none 0 1

COM comment O↑ U 1 4000 none 0 1

REDACTION RDD O 0 1 DIARY

Subfields: Repeating 

sets of information M↑ 1 999

items

RID redaction identifier M↑ N 1 3 1 < RID < 999 1 1

11.022

1 < RST < RST relative start time M↑ N 1 14 1 1 99999999999998 

99999999999999 > 

RET relative end time M↑ N 1 14 RET > RST 1 1 

COM Comment O↑ U 1 4000 none 0 1

SNIPPING SNP O 0 1 SEGMENTATION 11.023

SGI snipping indicator M↑ N 1 1 0=no 1 1
 

23

Field Mnemonic Content Cond Character Value Occurrenc

Number Description code Constraints e

T M M M M

y I a I a

p n x n x

e # # # #

1=yes

SPA snipping authority O↑ U 1 300 none 0 1

COM comment O↑ U 1 4000 none 0 1

SPD SNIPPING DIARY O 0 1

Subfields: Repeating 

sets of information 1 999

items

SPI snip identifier M↑ N 1 3 1 < SPI < 999 1 1

11.024 99999999999998 > Co

RST relative start time M↑ N 1 14 RST ≥ 0 1 1 the 

whic

of ~

seg 99999999999999 >

RET relative end time M↑ N 1 14 RET > RST 1 1 

COM comment O↑ U 1 4000 none 1 1

DIA DIARIZATION D 0 1

0=no DII diarization indicator M↑ N 1 1 1 1 1=yes

11.025

DAU diarization authority O↑ U 1 300 none 0 1

COM comment O↑ U 1 4000 none 0 1

11.026 SEGMENT DIARY SGD D 0 1 

SID segment identifier M↑ N 1 3 1 < SID < 999 1 1 Co

the 

whic TRK track identifier O↑ N 1 2 1 < TRK < 99 0 1 of ~

seg

99999999999998 > 

RST relative start time M↑ N 1 14 RST ≥ 0 1 1 

mment [ 49]: -11.024 and 11.026 (SPI, SID) –

number of segments is currently limited to 999, 

h is not enough! In case there is a physical limit 

27h of recording, there can be well more 

ments than 999 ! 

mment [ 50]: -11.024 and 11.026 (SPI, SID) –

number of segments is currently limited to 999, 

h is not enough! In case there is a physical limit 

27h of recording, there can be well more 

ments than 999 ! 
 

24

Field Mnemonic Content Cond Character Value Occurrenc

Number Description code Constraints e

T M M M M

y

p

e

I

n

#

a

x

#

I

n

#

a

x

#

99999999999999 >

RET relative end time M↑ N 1 14 RET > RST 1 1 

COM comment O↑ U 1 10000 none 0 1

11.027 

11.030

– RESERVED FOR 

FUTURE USE only 

by ANSI/NIST-ITL

11.031

TME

TIME OF 

SEGMENT 

RECORDING

D 

0 1

Subfield: 

sets of

items

repeating 

 information M↑

1 1998

DIA diary identifier M↑ B 1 1 0=snip diary

1=segment diary

1 1

SID segment identifier M↑ N 1 3 1 < SID < 999 1 1

DOR date of 

recording

original O↑ encoding specific: see 

Annex B or Annex C

encoding specific: 

see Annex B or 

Annex C

0 1 

TDT tagged date O↑ encoding specific: see 

Annex B or Annex C

encoding specific: 

see Annex B or 

Annex C

0 1 

SRT 

start time of segment 

recording O↑ encoding specific: see 

Annex B or Annex C

encoding specific: 

see Annex B or 

Annex C

0 1 

TST tagged start time O↑ encoding specific: see 

Annex B or Annex C

encoding specific: 

see Annex B or 

Annex C

0 1 

END end time 

recording

of segment O↑ encoding specific: see 

Annex B or Annex C

encoding specific: 

see Annex B or 

Annex C

0 1 

TET tagged end time O↑ encoding specific: see 

Annex B or Annex C

encoding specific: 

see Annex B or 

Annex C

0 0 
 

25

Field Mnemonic Content Cond Character Value Occurrenc

Number Description code Constraints e

T M M M M

y I a I a

p n x n x

e # # # #

STM source of time O↑ U 1 300 none 0 1

COM comment O↑ U 1 4000 none 0 1

SEGMENT 

GEOGRAPHICAL 

INFORMATION GEO D 0 1 (about person of 

interest at start of 

segment)

Subfields: repeating 

sets of information M↑ 1 1998

items

0=snip diary DIA diary identifier M↑ N 1 1 1 1 1=segment diary

0 or a list of 

SID segment identifiers M↑ NS 1 3995 integers separated 1 1 Com

by commas value 

value 

anywa segment cell phone SCT O↑ U 1 100 none 0 1 tower code

11.032 LTD latitude degree value D NS 1 9 -90 < LTD < 90 0 1

LTM latitude minute value D NS 1 8 0 < LTM < 60 0 1

LTS latitude second value D NS 1 8 0 < LTS < 60 0 1

LGD longitude degree value D NS 1 10 -180 < LGD < 180 0 1

longitude minute LGM D NS 1 8 0 < LGM < 60 0 1 value

longitude second 0 < LGS < 60 LGS D N 1 2 0 1 value positive integer

-422.000 < ELE < 

ELE Elevation O↑ NS 1 8 8848.000 0 1 Com real number record

What 

Everes value from GDC geodetic datum code O↑ AN 3 6 0 1 Table 6 MAR

ment [ 51]: -032 SID – mismatch in max. 

– in case the max number is 999, the max 

should be coherent with this. T should be 

y higher, see above. 

ment [ 52]: -what about is speech is 

ed in a coal mine that is deeper than 422m ? 

about recording in flight levels higher than Mt. 

t ? 

K: Do we need a floor and ceiling?
 

26

Field Mnemonic Content Cond Character Value Occurrenc

Number Description code Constraints e

T M M M M

y I a I a

p n x n x

e # # # #

geographic coordinate one or two integers 

GCM universal transverse D AN 2 3 followed by a 0 1 

mercator zone single letter

geographic coordinate 

GCE universal transverse D N 1 6 integer 0 1 

mercator easting

geographic coordinate 

GCN universal transverse D N 1 8 integer 0 1 

mercator northing

geographic reference GRT O↑ U 1 150 none 0 1 text

geographic coordinate 

OSI other system identifier O↑ U 1 10 none 0 1 

LANDMARK

geographic coordinate OCV D U 1 126 none 0 1 other system value

SEGMENT SQV D 0 1 QUALITY VALUES

Subfields: Repeating 

sets of information M↑ 1 1998

items

0=snip diary 1 1 DIA diary identifier M↑ N 1 1 1=segment diary

0 or a list of 1 1 

SID segment identifiers M↑ NS 1 3995 integers separated 

11.033 by commas Com

same 

0 < QVU < 100

or QVU = 255

QVU quality value M↑ N 1 3 (quality not 1 1 

assessed)

Integer

algorithm vendor 0000 < QAV < QAV M ↑ H 4 4 1 1 identification FFFF

algorithm product 0 < QAP < 65534 QAP M ↑ N 1 5 1 1 identification positive integer

ment [ 53]: -11.033,034,035,036 SID –

comment for max value as before. 
 

27

Field Mnemonic Content Cond Character Value Occurrenc

Number Description code Constraints e

T M M M M

y I a I a

p n x n x

e # # # #

COM comment D U 1 300 none 1 1 

VOCAL 

VCI COLLISION D 0 1 

INDICATOR

Subfields: Repeating 

sets of information 1 1998

items 11.034

0=snip diary DIA diary identifier M↑ N 1 1 1 1 1=segment diary

0 or a list of 

SID segment identifiers M↑ NS 1 3995 integers separated 1 1 

by commas

PROCESSING PPY D 0 1 PRIORITY

Subfields: Repeating 

sets of information 1 1998

items

11.035 0=snip diary DIA Diary identifier M↑ N 1 1 1 1 1=segment diary

0 or a list of 

SID segment identifiers M↑ N 1 3995 integers separated 1 1 

by commas

PTY Priority ↑ N 1 1 1 ≤ PTY ≤ 9 1 1 

SEGMENT SCN D 0 1 CONTENT

Subfields: Repeating 

sets of information M↑ 0 1998

items Com

will c 11.036 segme 0=snip diary 1 1 DIA diary identifier M↑ N 1 1 than 1 1= segment diary -11.03

the tra

of soft 0 or a list of 0 1 transc SID segment identifiers M↑ N 1 3995 integers separated mode by commas fully 

etc. 

ment [ 54]: -11.036 TRN – in case this filed 

ontain information for many (or even all) 

nts, the max value should be definitely higher 

0000 characters. 

6 should include more detailed information on 

nscription – automatics/manual, identification 

ware used, its configuration, name of person 

ribing, date, time, duration of transcription, 

(automatic, automatic manually corrected, 

manual), pointer to transcription guidelines, etc 
 

28

Field Mnemonic Content Cond Character Value Occurrenc

Number Description code Constraints e

T M M M M

y I a I a

p n x n x

e # # # #

TRN transcript O↑ U 1 10000 none 0 1

SEGMENT 

SCT SPEAKER D 0 1 

CHARACTERISTIC

Subfields: Repeating 

sets of information M↑ 1 1998

items

0=snip diary 1 1 DIA diary identifier M↑ N 1 1 1=segment diary

0 or a list of 0 1

SID segment identifiers M↑ NS 1 3995 integers separated 

by commas

IMP impairment O↑ N 1 1 0 < IMP < 5 0 1

Value from LBS language being spoken O↑ A 3 3 0 1 11.037 ISO 639-3

STY style of speech O↑ N 1 2 See Table 11-3 0 1

INT intelligibility O↑ N 0 2 0 ≤ INT ≤ 99 0 1

HST health status O↑ U 0 4000 none 0 1

EM emotional state O↑ N 1 2 See Table 11-4 0 1 

VEF vocal effort O↑ N 1 1 0 < VEF < 5 0 1 

VSY vocal style O↑ N 1 2 See Table 11-5 0 1 

COM comment O↑ U 1 4000 none 0 1 

SEGMENT SCH D 0 1 CHANNEL

11.038

Subfields: Repeating 

sets of information M↑ 1 1000

items
 

29

Field Mnemonic Content Cond Character Value Occurrenc

Number Description code Constraints e

T M M M M

y I a I a

p n x n x

e # # # #

0=snip diary 1 1 DIA diary identifier M↑ N 1 1 1=segment diary

0 or a list of 0 1

SID segment identifiers M↑ N 1 3995 integers separated 

by commas

TYP transducer type O↑ N 1 2 See Table 11-6 0 1

unknown=0

TRN Transducer O↑ N 1 1 carbon=1 0 1 

electret=2 other=3

ENV capture environment O↑ AN 1 4000 Text 0 1

DST distance to transducer O↑ N 1 5 0 < DST < 99999 0 1

ACS acquisition source O↑ N 1 2 See Table 83 0 1

ALT alteration O↑ U 1 400 none 0 1

COM comment O↑ U 1 4000 none 0 1

RESERVED FOR 

FUTURE 11.039- USE only by 11.050 ANSI/NISTITL

11.051 COM COMMENT O↑ U 1 4000 none 0 1

RESERVED FOR 11.052- FUTURE USE only Not to be used 11.099 by ANSI/NIST-ITL

11.100- USER-DEFINED user- UDF O user-defined user-defined 11.900 FIELDS defined

RESERVED FOR 

11.901 FUTURE USE only Not to be used Co

by ANSI/NIST-ITL futur

what

TR ANNOTATION ANN O 0 1 INFORMATION

mment [ 55]: -– I see this is reserved for 

e use, but still, if the fields are already there, 

 is the difference between ANNOTATION and 

ANSCRIPTION ? 
30

Field Mnemonic Content Cond Character Value Occurrenc

Number Description code Constraints e

T M M M M

y I a I a

p n x n x

e # # # #

11.902 Subfields: Repeating C

sets of information M↑ 1 * I d items Se

encoding specific: encoding specific: see GMT Greenwich mean time M↑ see Annex B or 1 1 Annex B or Annex C Annex C

processing algorithm NAV M↑ U 1 64 none 1 1 name version

OWN algorithm owner M↑ U 1 64 none 1 1

PRO process description M↑ U 1 255 none 1 1

DEVICE UNIQUE first character = M 11.903 DUI O ANS 13 16 0 1 IDENTIFIER or P

MAKE/MODEL/SE MMS O 0 1 RIAL NUMBER

MAK make M↑ U 1 50 none 1 1

11.904 C

MOD model M↑ U 1 50 none 1 1 no

SER serial Nnumber M↑ U 1 50 none 1 1

COM comment O↑ U 1 * none

11.905- RESERVED FOR 

11.992 FUTURE USE only Not to be used

by ANSI/NIST-ITL

SOURCE AGENCY 11.993 SAN O U 1 125 none 0 1 NAME

EXTERNAL FILE 11.994 EFR D U 1 200 none 0 1 REFERENCE

ASSOCIATED ASC O 0 1 CONTEXT

11.995

Subfields: Repeating 

sets of information M ↑ 1 255

items

omment [ 56]: -11.902 – algorithms for what ? 

id not have the Annex, so I don’t know what is in 

ction 7.4.1.

t explained in the text. 

omment [ 57]: -11.903 and 11.904 – not clear, 
 

31

Field Mnemonic Content Cond Character Value Occurrenc

Number Description code Constraints e

T M M M M

y

p

e

I

n

#

a

x

#

I

n

#

a

x

#

CAN associated 

number

context M↑ N 1 3 1 < ACN < 255

positive integer 1 1

ASP associated 

position

segment O↑ N 1 2 1 < ASP < 99

positive integer 0 1

11.996 HAS HASH O H 64 64 None 0 1

SOR

SOURCE 

REPRESENTATIO O 0 1

11.997

N 

Subfields:

sets of 

items

 Repeating 

information M↑ 1 255

SRN source

number

 representation M↑ N 1 3 1 < SRN < 255

positive integer 1 1

RSP reference 

position

RESERVED FOR

FUTURE USE only 

by ANSI/NIST-ITL

segment O↑ N 1 2 1 < RSP < 99

positive integer 0 1

11.998

11.999 DATA VOICE DATA D B 1

Not to be used

22 None 0 1

771

772

773 1. Field 11.001: Record header

774

775 The content of this mandatory field is dependent upon the encoding used. See the relevant annex 

776 of this standard for details. See Section 7.1. 

777

778 2. Field 11.002: Information Designation Character / IDC

779

780 This mandatory field shall contain the IDC assigned to this Type-11 record as listed in the 

781 information item IDC for this record in Field 1.003 Transaction content / CNT. See Section

782 7.3.1. Editor’s note: This field will allow linking of the Type-11 records to the appropriate 

783 Type-2 records in the transaction. 

784

785 3. Field 11.003: Audio Object Descriptor/AOD
 

32

786

787 This mandatory field shall be a numeric entry selected from the attribute code column of Table 

788 1-1. Only one value is allowed and indicates the type of audio object containing the voice 

789 recording which is the focus of this Type-11 record. Attribute code 0 indicates that the audio 

790 object of this record is a digital voice data file in the Field 11.999. Attribute code 1 indicates that 

791 the audio object is a digital voice data file at the URL given in Field 11.994. Attribute codes 2-4 

792 indicate that the audio object is a physical media object at a location described in Field 11.994.

793

794 Table 11-1 

795 Audio Object Descriptor

Audio Object Attribute 

Code

Internal digital voice data file 0

External digital voice data file 1

Physical Media Object containing digital data 2

Physical Media Object containing analog signals 3

Physical Media Object containing unknown data or 

signals

4

796

797 4. Field 11.004: Voice Laboratory Setting/VLS

798

799 This is an optional field and shall contain information about the site or agency that created the 

800 voice recording pointed to or included in this record. In the case of files created from previous 

801 recordings, the VLS is not necessarily the source of the original transduction of the acoustic 

802 vocalizations from the person to whom the Type-11record pertains. The VLS need not be the 

803 same as the Submitting Agency of Field 1.008, any agency mentioned in the corresponding type804 2 record or the Source Agency Name of Field 11.993. Editor’s note: This field is modeled after 

805 18.003 

806

807 o The first information item is the lab type / LTY is optional. When present, this 

808 information item contains a single character describing the site or agency that created the 

809 voice recording: 

810

811 G = Government

812 I = Commercial

813 P = Private individual

814 O = Other 

815 U = Unknown

816

817 o The second information item (name of original source/ NOO) is optional and shall be the 

818 name of the group, organization or agency that created the voice recording. There may 

819 be no more than one occurrence for this item. This is an optional information item is in 

820 Unicode characters and is limited to 400 characters in length.

821

822 o The third information item is the point of contact / POC who composed the voice 

823 recording. This is an optional information item that could include the name, telephone 
33

824 number and e-mail address of the person or persons responsible for the creation of the 

825 voice recording. This information item may be up to 200 Unicode characters.

826

827 o The fourth information item is optional. It is the ISO-3166-1 code of the sending country 

828 / CSC. This is the code of where the voice recording was created – not necessarily the 

829 nation of the agency entered in Field 11.993: Source agency / SRC . All three formats 

830 specified in ISO-3166-1 are allowed (Alpha2, Alpha3 and Numeric). A country code is 

831 either 2 or 3 characters long.

832

833

834 5. Field 11.005: Role of Voice Recording/ROL

835

836 This is a mandatory field and shall be a numeric entry selected from the “attribute code” column 

837 of Table 11-2. Only one value is allowed and indicates the role of the voice recording (known 

838 or questioned) within the transaction.

839

840 Table 11-2

841 Role of the Voice Recording

Role Attribute 

Code

No information 0

Known sample, single speaker, subject of 

transaction

1

Known sample, single speaker, interlocutor 2

Known sample, single speaker, other 3

Known sample, multiple speakers, including 

subject of transaction

4

Known sample, multiple speakers, excluding 

subject of transaction

5

Questioned sample, single speaker 6

Questioned sample, multiple speakers 7

Audio recording with unknown voice content 8

Other 9

User-defined 10-99

842

843 Editor’s note: In the FBI EBTS environment, mapping of the various speakers in a multiple844 speaker environment to their descriptions in Type-2 records will be handled by modification of 

845 the Type-2 record.

846

847 Editor’s note: Do we need a comment field to handle the case where “other” is chosen?

848 Convener recommends against user-defined fields, since the same number may be used by 

849 multiple organizations and cause confusion. However, there is nothing that is ‘wrong’ with user850 defined fields, per se. If used, there should be a statement such that the user-defined codes are 

851 clearly explained in the application profile (such as EBTS). Convener recommends using code 9 

852 and adding another information item to this field as Comment. Convener does not believe that 

853 another field is needed to add the comment. 

854

Comment [ 58]: -– additional entries will be 

needed, there are lots of acquisition sources not 

mentioned in the table. 
34

855 6. Field 11.006: Recorder / REC

856

857 This field is mandatory and shall indicate information about the recording equipment that created 

858 the voice recording contained in or pointed to by this record. 

859 NOTE: As recordings or data files may be transcoded from previously recorded or broadcast 

860 content, this equipment may or may not be the equipment used to record the original acoustic 

861 vocalization of the person to whom Type-11 record pertains.

862

863 o The first information item (recorder type/RTP) is an optional text field of up to 4000 

864 characters describing the recording equipment that created the voice recording. An 

865 example would be “Home telephone answering device”. 

866

867 o The second, third and fourth information items (recorder make/MAK, recorder 

868 model/MOD, recorder serialnumber/SER) are optional items of up to 50 characters 

869 each and shall contain the make, model and serial number, respectively, for the recording 

870 device. There may be no more than one entry for this item. See Section 7.7.1.2 for details. 

871 Editor’s note: Field 11.904 is also make/model/serial number. We need to discuss what 

872 various hardware/software items these refer to.

873

874 o The fifth information item (acquisition source/AQS) is a mandatory and is an alpha875 numeric item. If all of the audio signal in the voice recording comes from a single 

876 acquisition source, the item shall be a numeric entry selected from the “attribute code”

877 column of Table 83 of the Type-20 record. When multiple sources are used for various 

878 voice segments in the voice recording, the code “MS” shall be used and individual 

879 sources will be given in the following comment item. If “12” from Table 83 is chosen 

880 indicating an analog recording, then Field 11.003 will indicate “3”, the recording will be 

881 described in Field 11.010, and the location of the physical medium will be recorded in 

882 Field 11.994. Note that codes 1 through 6 and 11 from Table 83 are inapplicable, and 

883 shall not be used as a value in this information item.

884

885 o The sixth information item (comments/COM) is an optional text string of a maximum

886 length of 4000 characters may contain any additional information about the recorder used 

887 to create the voice recording, including information about the recording software. If 

888 AQS indicates multiple sources, “MS”, this field should be used to summarize the known 

889 sources from which the voice recording was created.

890

891

892 Table 83 

893 Editor’s note: Copied from the Type-20 record, included here for convenience. 

894 Additional entries may be needed to support a voice recording record type

895 Acquisition Source

Acquisition source type Attribute code

Unspecified or unknown 0

Static digital image from an unknown source 1

Static digital image from a digital still-image camera 2

Static digital image from a scanner 3
35

Single video frame from an unknown source 4

Single video frame from an analog video camera 5

Single video frame from a digital video camera 6

Video sequence from an unknown source 7

Video sequence from an analog video camera, stored in analog format 8

Video sequence from an analog video camera, stored in digital format 9

Video sequence frame from a digital video camera 10

Computer screen image capture 11

Analog audio recording device; stored in analog form (such as a phonograph record) 12

Analog audio recording device; converted to digital 13

Digital audio recording device 14

Landline telephone – both sender and receiver 15

Mobile telephone – both sender and receiver 16

Satellite telephone – both sender and receiver 17

Telephone – unknown or mixed sources 18

Television – NSTC 19

Television – PAL 20

Television – Other 21

Voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) 22

Radio transmission: short-wave (specify single side band or continuous wave in FDN) 23

Radio transmission: amateur radio (specify lower side band or continuous wave in 

FDN)

24

Radio transmission: FM (87.5 MHz to 108 MHz) 25

Radio transmission: long-wave (150 kHz to 519 kHz) 26

Radio transmission: AM (570 kHz to 1720 kHz) 27

Radio transmission: Aircraft frequencies 28

Radio transmission: Ship and coastal station frequencies 29

Vendor specific capture format 30

Other 31

896

897 7. Field 11.007: Record Creation Date/RCD

898

899 This mandatory field shall contain the date and time of creation of this Type-11 record. This 

900 date will generally be different from the voice recording creation date and may be different from 

901 the date at which the acoustic vocalization originally occurred. See Section 7.7.2.4 Local date 

902 and time for details.

903

904 8. Field 11.008: Voice Recording Creation Date/VRD

905

906 This optional field shall contain the date and time of creation of the voice recording contained in 

907 the record. If pre-recorded or transcoded materials were used, this date may be different from 

908 the date at which the acoustic vocalization originally occurred. See Section 7.7.2.4 Local date

909 and time for details.
36

910

911

912 9. Field 11.009: Total Recording Duration / TRD

913

914 This field is optional and gives the total length of the voice recording in time, compressed bytes 

915 and total samples. At least one of the three information items must be entered if this field is used.

916

917 o The first information item (time/TIM) is optional and gives the total time of the voice

918 recording in microseconds. The size of this item is limited to 14 digits, limiting the total 

919 time duration of the signal to 99,999 seconds, which is approximately 28 hours.

920

921 o The second information item (compressed bytes/CBY) is optional and gives the total 

922 number of compressed bytes in the voice data file. Consequently, this information item 

923 applies only to digital voice recordings stored as voice data files. The size of this item is 

924 limited to 14 digits, limiting the total size of the voice data file to 99 terabytes.

925

926 o The third information item (total samples/TSM) is optional and gives the total number of 

927 samples in the voice data file after any decompression of the compressed signal. This 

928 information item applies only to digital voice recordings stored as voice data files. The 

size of this item is limited to 14 digits, limiting the total number of samples to 99 x1012 929

930 samples 

931

932

933 10. Field 11.010: Physical Media Object/ PMO

934

935 This field is optional and identifies the characteristics of the physical media containing the voice 

936 recording. There can be only one physical media object per Type-11 record, but multiple Type937 11 records can point to the same physical media object. This field only applies if Field 11.003 

938 has an attribute code of 2,3 or 4. The location of the physical media object is given in Field 

939 11.994.

940

941 o The first information item (media type/MTP) is optional text of up to 300 characters and 

942 describes the general type of media (i.e., analog cassette tape, reel-to-reel tape, CD, 

943 DVD, phonograph record) upon which the voice recording is stored. Editor’s note: 

944 Should this be a table? Convener’s note: This information item should be mandatory if 

945 this field is chosen. Table and text have not been changed to reflect this viewpoint. Also 

946 recommend sentences: If an analog media is used for storage, and AQS is 14, then a 

947 description of the digital to analog procedure should be noted in Field 11.902 and the 

948 reasons for such a conversion noted in COM of this field.The second information item 

949 (recording speed/RSP) is optional and gives a numerical value to the speed at which the 

950 physical media object must be played to reproduce the voice signal content. This value 

951 may be integer or floating point. Convener’s note: 

952

953 o The third information item (recording speed units/RSU) is optional text of up to 300 

954 characters that indicates the units of measure to which the second information item (RSP) 

Comment [ 59]: I don’t get how are you going 

from 14 digits to 28 hours?
37

955 refers. Convener believes that this information item should be mandatory if RSP is 

956 entered, making it Condition code D.

957

958 o The fourth information item (equalization/EQ) is optional and indicates the equalization 

959 that should be applied for faithful rendering of the voice recording on the physical media 

960 object.

961 Editor’s note: How do we appropriately characterize EQ? AES 57 contains the following text: 

962 4.4.17.4.12 equalization

963 The equalization element shall be used to indicate any inherent equalization curve that must be applied to

964 the described audio object or region during playback to properly recover the recorded sound. Where possible,

965 this information should be given by its internationally recognized standard name. If no equalization is required for 

966 proper playback of the described audio object, then the equalization element shall be omitted.

967

968 o The fifth information item (tracks/TRK) is an optional integer between 1 and 99, 

969 inclusive, that gives the number of tracks on the physical media object. For example, a 

970 stereo phonograph record will have 2 tracks. 

971

972 o The sixth information item (speaker track/STK) is an optional list of integers which 

973 indicate which tracks carry the voices of the speaker(s). Note that the speaker(s) may be 

974 identified by a Type-2 record linked to this record by having the same IDC.

975

976 o The seventh information item (comment/COM) is optional and allows for additional 

977 comments of up to 4000 Unicode characters in length describing the physical media 

978 object.

979

980

981 11. Field 11.011: Codec/CDC

982

983 This is an optional field that gives information about the Codec used to encode the voice data in 

984 the digital recording. This field is not used if the voice recording is stored on a physical media 

985 object as an analog signal. This field is only used if no header is read for the digital audio file 

986 when it is opened.

987

988 o The first information item (codec type/CDT) is optional and indicates the single Codec 

989 type used for all audio segments in the record. This format does not accommodate 

990 multiple Codec types within a single record. It shall be a numeric entry selected from the 

991 “attribute code” column of the Table of Codecs that is available at 

992 http://www.nist.gov/itl/iad/ig/ansi_standard.cfm. These Codecs can be compressed (such 

993 as MP3) or uncompressed (such as WAV and AIF) file formats and are generally not 

994 open source, unlike OGG. For example, WAV, AIF and MP3 specifications are owned 

995 by MicroSoft, Apple, and the Fraunhofer Institute, respectively. OGG is a free, open

996 container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. If the codec type is identified 

997 as “other” -- a value of 53, the fifth information item (comment/COM) shall be used to 

998 describe the codec.

999

1000 Editor’s Note: This table is now an external reference to allow easy updating.

1001 Convener: This information item should be mandatory if this field is used.
38

1002

1003 External Table of Codecs

1004

Codec Type Attribute 

Code

AAC 1

AC-3 2

AIF 3

AMR 4

AMR-WB 5

AMR-WB+ 6

Apple Lossless 7

Asao 8

ATRAC 9

CELT 10

DRA 11

DTS 12

EVRC 13

EVRC-B 14

FLAC 15

GSM-EFR 16

GSM-FR 17

GSM-HR 18

HE-AAC 19

iLBC 20

iSAC 21

ITU-T G.711 (PCM) 22

ITU-T G.711.0 (PCM) 23

ITU-T G.711.1 (PCM) 24

ITU-T G.718 25

ITU-T G.719 26

ITU-T G.722 27

ITU-T G.722.1 28

ITU-T G.722.2 29

ITU-T G.723 30

ITU-T G.723.1 (ACELP) 31

ITU-T G.726 (ADPCM) 32

ITU-T G.728 33

ITU-T G.729 34

ITU-T G.729.1 (CS-ACELP) 35

Linear PCM 36

Monkey’s Audio 37

MPEG (Surround) 38

MPEG-1 Layer I 39

MPEG-1 Layer II (multi-channel) 40

MPEG-1 Layer III (MP3) 41

MPEG-4 ALS 42

Comment [ 60]: AIFF?
 

39

1005

1006

1007

1008

1009

1010

1011

1012

1013

1014

1015

1016

1017

1018

1019

1020

1021

1022

1023

1024

1025

1026

1027

1028

1029

1030

1031

1032

1033

1034

1035

1036

1037

1038

1039

1040

1041

1042

MPEG-4 CELP 43

MPEG-4 DST 44

MPEG-4 HVXC 45

MPEG-4 SLS 46

MT9 47

Musepack 48

Non-streaming OGG Vorbis 49

OptimFROG 50

Opus 51

OSQ 52

Other 53

QCELP 54

RealAudio 55

RTAudio 56

SD2 57

SHN 58

SILK 59

Siren 60

SMV 61

Speex 62

SVOPC 63

TTA (True Audio) 64

TwinVQ 65

Unknown 66

USAC 67

VMR-WB 68

Vorbis 69

WavPack 70

WMA 71

WMA lossless 72

WMA Voice 73 Comment [ 61]: (LC) also known as 

Nellymoser audio codec
40

1043

1044

1045 o The second item (sampling rate/SRT) indicates the number of digital samples that 

1046 represent a second of analog voice data upon conversion to an acoustic signal. 

1047 Acceptable values are between 0 and 100 MHz, but unknown sampling rates shall be 

1048 given the value of 0. Editor’s note: Re-sampling and changes to sampling rate should be 

1049 logged in the Type-98 (which documents the entire ANSI/NIST transaction) or Field 

1050 11.902 (which documents only Type-11) audit logs. Each audio segment in the record is 

1051 presumed to have the same sampling rate. Must we include ranges? There are 

1052 oversampled 1-bit audio coders that, in theory, could be used for voice. For example, the 

1053 SACD format uses 2.8224 MHz 1-bit sampling or 192 kHz 24-bit sampling. The DVD1054 Audio standard supports 192 kHz 24-bit coding Should there, if there isn’t already, be a 

1055 similar recommendation to indicate changes in coding? Of course, we want to 

1056 encourage/require that the original format of the data be preserved, but in the process 

1057 chain there could be a need for converting the coding – for example, a receiving agency’s 

1058 system might not be able to open files encoded with FLAC, which could be converted to 

1059 LPCM that almost everything can open. 

1060

1061 o The third item (bit depth/BIT) indicates the number of bits that are used to represent a 

1062 single sample of voice data. Acceptable values are between 1 and 60, inclusive. 

1063 Encoders of unknown or variable bit depth shall be given the value of 0. Nothing in this 

1064 field is meant to be an indication of the dynamic range of the voice data. Changes to bit 

1065 depth should be logged in Type-98 or Field 11.902 audit logs. 

1066

1067 o The fourth item (number of channels/NCH) is optional and gives the integer number of 

1068 channels of data represented in the digital voice data file. The number of channels must 

1069 be between 1 and 99, inclusive. If this item is not included, the voice data file will be 

1070 assumed to have only one channel.

1071

1072 o The fifth item (comment/COM) is an optional unrestricted text string of up to 4000 

1073 characters in length that may contain additional information about the codec or 

1074 reconstruction of audio output from the stored digital data. However, this information 

1075 item shall be present if CDT = 53 (Other). This would include any noise reduction 

1076 processing or equalization that must be applied to faithfully render the voice recording.

1077

1078

1079 12. Field 11.012: Preliminary Signal Quality/PSQ

1080

1081 This field is optional and gives an assessment of the general “quality” of the voice recording. 

1082 There may be as many as 9 PSQ fields for the audio file to indicate different types of quality 

1083 assessments. Examples include signal-to-noise ratio and Speech IntelligibillityIntelligibility

1084 Index, ANSI 3.5 1997. 

1085

1086 o The first information item (quality value/QVU) is mandatory and shall indicate the 

1087 general quality value between between 0 (low quality) and 100 (high quality). A value 

1088 of 255 indicates that quality was not assessed.
41

1089

1090 o A second information item is optional and shall specify the ID of the vendor of the 

1091 quality algorithm used to calculate the quality score, which is an algorithm vendor 

1092 identification / QAV. This 4-digit hex value (See Section 5.5 Character types ) is 

1093 assigned by IBIA and expressed as four characters. The IBIA maintains the Vendor 

1094 Registry of CBEFF Biometric Organizations that map the value in this field to a 

1095 registered organization. For algorithms not registered with the IBIA, the value of 0x00

1096 shall be used.

1097

1098 o A third information item is optional and shall specify a numeric product code assigned by 

1099 the vendor of the quality algorithm, which may be registered with the IBIA, but 

1100 registration is not required. This is the algorithm product identification / QAP that 

1101 indicates which of the vendor’s algorithms was used in the calculation of the quality 

1102 score. This information item contains the integer product code and should be within the 

1103 range 1 to 65,534. For products not registered with the IBIA, the code 0 shall be used.

1104

1105 o The fourth information item (comment/COM) is an optional and should be used to give 

1106 additional information about the quality assessment process. It shall be used to describe 

1107 unregistered algorithms.

1108

1109 13. Fields 11.013-020: Reserved Fields

1110

1111 These fields are reserved for future use by ANSI/NIST-ITL.

1112

1113 14. Field 11.021: Redaction/ RED

1114

1115 This field is optional and indicates whether the voice recording has been redacted, meaning that 

1116 some of the audio record has been overwritten (“Beeped”) or erased to delete speech content 

1117 without altering the relative timings within, or the length of, the segments. This field is not to be 

1118 used to indicate that audio content has been snipped with the alteration of the relative timings in 

1119 or length of the segment. 

1120

1121 o The first information item (redaction indicator/RDI) is a binary variable and is 

1122 mandatory if this field is used. It indicates whether the voice recording contains 

1123 overwritten or erased sections intended to remove, without altering the length of the 

1124 segment, semantic content deemed not suitable for transmission or storage. 0 indicates 

1125 no redaction and 1 indicates that redaction has occurred.

1126

1127 o The second information item (segmentation redaction authority/SGA) is an optional 

1128 text field of up to 300 characters in length containing information about the agency that 

1129 directed, authorized or performed the redaction. Agencies undertaking redaction 

1130 activities on the original speech should log their actions by appending to this item and 

1131 noting the change of field contents in the Type-98 record and / or Field 11.902 of this 

1132 record

1133

Comment [ 62]: -– I would use ‘quality 

assessment algorithm’ rather than ‘quality 

algorithm’. The later could be interpreted in a way 

that it improves the quality which is certainly not 

true. Please check also other occurrences. 

MARK: I do not have an issue with this.

Comment [ 63]: What is IBIA ? Expand and 

add to the list of abbreviations.

MARK: We should do this.
42

1134 o The third information item (comment/COM) is an optional unrestricted text string of up 

1135 to 4000 characters in length that may contain text information about the redactions 

1136 affecting the stored voice data. 

1137

1138

1139 15. Field 11.022: Redaction Diary/RDD

1140

1141 This optional field (redaction diary/RDD) indicates the timings with the voice recording of 

1142 redacted (overwritten) audio segments. The redactions need not be dominated by speech from 

1143 the subjectof this transaction or record.. Three items (uniquely numbering the redactions and 

1144 giving relative start and end times of each) are mandatory if this field is used and shall repeat for 

1145 each redaction. A fourth item is optional and accommodates comments on the individual 

1146 redactions. The record type accommodates up to 1000 redactions. 

1147

1148 o The first item (redaction identifier/RID) is mandatory if this field is used and uniquely 

1149 numbers the redactions to which the following items in the field apply. There is no 

1150 requirement that the redactions be numbered sequentially. The RID may contain up to 3 

1151 digits, meaning that the number of redactions that may be identified is limited to 999. 

1152

1153 o The second item (relative start time/RST) is a mandatory integer for every redaction 

1154 identified by an RID and indicates in microseconds the time of the start of the redaction 

1155 relative to the beginning of the voice recording. The item can contain up to 14 digits, 

1156 meaning that the start of a redaction might occur anywhere within a voice recording 

1157 limited to about 27 hours. It is not expected that redactions will overlap, meaning that the 

1158 RST of a redaction is not expected to occur between the RST and RET of any other 

1159 redaction, although this is not prohibited. 

1160

1161 o The third item (relative end time/RET) is a mandatory integer for every redaction

1162 identified by an RID and indicates in microseconds the time of the end of the redaction 

1163 relative to the beginning of the voice recording. The item can contain up to 14 digits, 

1164 meaning that the end of a redaction might occur anywhere within a voice recording 

1165 limited to about 27 hours As with the RST, it is not expected that redactions will overlap, 

1166 although this is not prohibited.

1167

1168 o The fourth item (comment/COM) is an optional unrestricted text string of up to 4000 

1169 characters in length that allows for comments of any type to be made on a redaction. 

1170

1171

1172 16. Field 11.023: Snipping Segmentation/ SNP

1173

1174 This field is optional and indicates whether the voice recording referenced in this Type-11 record 

1175 has had segments removed or contains segments that have been snipped from one or more longer 

1176 voice recordings, in either case meaning that the voice signal is not a continuous recording in 

1177 time. This field is used to indicate removal, for any reason, of audio signal from the original 

1178 recording of the acoustic vocalizations in a way that disrupts time references.

1179
43

1180 o The first information item (snip indicator/SGI) is a binary variable and is mandatory if 

1181 this field is used. It indicates whether the voice recording contains temporal 

1182 discontinuities caused by snipping of segments from one or more longer recordings. 0 

1183 indicates no snipping and 1 indicates that snipping has occurred.

1184

1185 o The second information item (snipping authority/SPA) is an optional text field of up to 

1186 300 characters containing information about the agency that performed the snipping 

1187 segmentation. Agencies undertaking snipping activities on the original speech should log 

1188 their actions by appending to this item and noting the change of field contents in the 

1189 Type-98 record and / or Field 11.902 of this record.

1190

1191

1192 o The third information item (comment/COM) is an optional unrestricted text string of up 

1193 to 4000 characters that may contain text information about the snip activities affecting the 

1194 voice recording.

1195

1196

1197 17. Field 11.024: Snipping Diary/SPD

1198

1199 This optional field (snip diary/SPD) allows this type to document the snips obtained from 

1200 larger voice recordings, which might themselves be included in the transaction as Type-20 

1201 records. Each snip diarized shall be dominated by speech from the subject of this Type-11 

1202 record, who may be described in a Type-2 record within the transaction with the same IDC as 

1203 this record. Three items (uniquely numbering the snips and giving relative start and end times 

1204 of each) are mandatory if this field is used and shall repeat for each snip identified. A fourth 

1205 item is optional and allows for comments. The record type accommodates up to 999 snips. If 

1206 there is no snipping (Field 11.023) indicated, then all of the data in the voice recording will be 

1207 considered as in a single snip and the subfields will not repeat. There can be at most one 

1208 snipping diary for each Type-11 record.

1209

1210 o The first item (snip identifier/SPI) is mandatory if this field is used and uniquely numbers 

1211 the snip to which the following items in the field apply. There is no requirement that the 

1212 snips be numbered sequentially. The SPI may contain up to 3 digits, meaning that 999 

1213 snips may be identified. If Field 11.023 indicates snipping, the voice recording must 

1214 consist of at least one snip.

1215

1216 o The second item (relative start time/RST) is a mandatory integer for every snip identified 

1217 by an SPI and indicates in microseconds the time of the start of the snip relative to the 

1218 beginning of the voice recording. The item can contain up to 14 digits, meaning that the 

1219 RST might occur anywhere within a voice recording limited to about 27 hours. Because 

1220 each snip is obtained independently from a larger voice recording, snips shall not overlap, 

1221 meaning that the RST of a snip shall not occur between the RST and RET of any other 

1222 snip. 

1223

1224 o The third item (relative end time/RET) is a mandatory integer for every snip identified by 

1225 an SPI and indicates in microseconds the time of the end of the snip relative to the 

Comment [ 64]: 999 snips too few (see 

above)

Comment [ 65]: As opposed to 28 hours 

quoted before?
44

1226 beginning of the voice recording. The item can contain up to 14 digits, meaning that the

1227 snip may end anywhere within the 27 hour voice recording. Because each snip is 

1228 obtained independently from a larger voice recording, snips shall not overlap, meaning 

1229 that the RET of a snip shall not occur between the RST and RET of any other snip. 

1230

1231 o The fourth item (comment/COM) is an optional unrestricted text string of up to 4000 

1232 characters in length that allows for comments of any type to be made on a snip. This is 

1233 allows for comments on a snip-by-snip basis, including comments on the source of each 

1234 snip. This comment field could contain word- or phone-level transcriptions, language 

1235 translations or security classification markings, as specified in exchange agreements.

1236

1237

1238 18. Field 11.025: Diarization/DIA

1239

1240 This field is optional and indicates whether the voice recording has been diarized, meaning that 

1241 time markings are included in Field 11.026 to indicate the speech segments of interest pertaining 

1242 to the subject of this Type-11 record. Therefore, if this field is present, then Field 11.026 shall 

1243 also be present in the record.

1244

1245 o The first information item (diarization indicator/DII) is mandatory if this field is used. 

1246 It is a binary variable that indicates whether the voice recording is accompanied a 

1247 segment diaries in Field 11.026 indicating speech segments from the voice signal subject 

1248 of the Type-11 record. 0 indicates no accompanying diary and 1 indicates one or more 

1249 accompanying diaries.

1250

1251 o The second information item (diarization authority/DAU) is an optional text field of up 

1252 to 300 characters containing information about the agency that performed the diarization. 

1253 Agencies undertaking diarization activities on the original speech should log their actions 

1254 by appending to this item and noting the change of field contents in the Type-98 record 

1255 and / or Field 11.902 of this record

1256 o The third information item (comment/COM) is an optional unrestricted text string of up 

1257 to 4000 characters that may contain text information about the diarization activities 

1258 undertaken on the voice data. 

1259

1260

1261 19. Field 11.026: Segment Diary/SGD

1262

1263 field only appears if Field 11.025 is present and DII = 1. This field (segment diary/SDI) names 

1264 and locates the segments within the voice recording of this Type-11 record associated with a 

1265 single speaker. Within a Type-11 record, there may be only one segment diary describing a 

1266 single speaker within the single voice recording. If additional diarizations of this voice recording 

1267 are necessary -- for example, to locate segments of speech from a second speaker in the voice 

1268 recording, additional Type-11 records must be created. Each segment diarized shall be 

1269 dominated by speech from the subject of this record. The subject may be described in the Type1270 2 record with the same IDC value as this record. The first three items (uniquely numbering the 

1271 segments and giving start and end times of each relative to the absolute beginning of the voice 

Comment [ 66]: As opposed to 28 hours 

quoted before?

Comment [ 67]: I agree this should be 

included to benefit the receiving agency, 

especially if the segment is embedded in a large 

voice recording.
45

1272 recording) are mandatory if this field is used and shall repeat for each speech segment identified. 

1273 A fourth item is optional and accommodates comments on the individual segments. This record 

1274 type accommodates up to 999 speech segments. For voice recordings consisting of snips, the 

1275 SPD may be included in the SGD as a subset and may be identical. 

1276

1277 o The first item (segment identifier/SID) is mandatory if this field is used and uniquely 

1278 numbers the segment to which the following items in the field apply. There is no 

1279 requirement that the segments be numbered sequentially. The SID may contain up to 3 

1280 digits, meaning that the number of segments identified is limited to 999.

1281

1282 o The second item (track identifier/TRK) is optional and indicates the track or channel of a 

1283 multichannel voice recording upon which this segment is found. The number of tracks or 

1284 channels on the recording is limited to 99, so this item may take any value between 1 and 

1285 99, inclusive.

1286

1287 o The third item (relative start time/RST) is a mandatory integer for every segment and 

1288 indicates in microseconds the time of the start of the segment relative to the absolute 

1289 beginning of the voice recording. The item can contain up to 14 digits, meaning that the 

1290 segment can start at any time within the 27 hour voice recording. Because each segment 

1291 is expected to be dominated by the primary subject of this Type-11 record, it is not 

1292 expected that segments will overlap, meaning that the RST of a segment is not expected 

1293 to occur earlier than the end of a previous segment, although this is not prohibited. In 

1294 multiple transactions involving multiple speakers using the same voice data record, 

1295 segments across the transactions may overlap during periods of voice collision. Editor’s 

1296 note: Neither “Start of the segment” nor “End of the segment” has been defined. Should 

1297 they be? 

1298

1299 o The fourth item (relative end time/RET) is mandatory for every segment and indicates in 

1300 microseconds the time of the end of the segment relative to the absolute beginning of the 

1301 voice recording. The item can contain up to 14 digits, meaning that the segment can end 

1302 at any time within the 27 hour voice recording. As with the RST, it is expected that 

1303 segments from the subject of this Type-11 record will not overlap, although this is not 

1304 prohibited. 

1305

1306 o The fifth item (comment/COM) is an optional unrestricted text string of a maximum of 

1307 10,000 characters in length that allows for comments of any type to be made on a 

1308 segment. This comment field could contain word- or phone-level transcriptions, 

1309 language translations or security classification markings, as specified in exchange 

1310 agreements.

1311

1312 20. Field 11.027-030: Reserved Fields

1313

1314 These fields are reserved for future use by ANSI/NIST-ITL.

1315

1316 21. Field 11.031: Time of Segment Recording /TME

1317

Comment [ 68]: You seem to categorically 

want to exclude segments with overlapping 

speech. For many methods and features in 

speaker identification, overlapping speech is 

indeed harmful (e.g. automatic speaker 

recognition) and should be avoided. However, 

there are other methods and features that are 

more tolerant in this regard. It might, for 

example, be possible to identify dialectal 

features from a portion of speech of the relevant 

speaker when another, irrelevant, speaker is 

talking at the same time. Perhaps if the speech 

material is long enough one can afford to ignore 

overlapping portions anyway, but in case the 

speech material is short or the amount of 

overlapping speech is massive, one should 

retain the option of including segments with 

overlap for analysis.

Comment [ 69]: 999 too few (see above)

Comment [ 70]: Be consistent, check 

throughout
46

1318 This optional field (Time of Segment Recording/TME) refers to a segment identified in either 

1319 the snip diary SPD of Field 11.024 or the segment diary SGD of Field 11.026 and gives the 

1320 date, start, and end times of the original transduction of the contemporaneous vocalizations in the 

1321 identified segment. This field is only present if Field 11.024 or Field 11.026 is present in this 

1322 record. This field also accommodates circumstances in which the original voice signal recording 

1323 was tagged with a time and date field. There is no requirement that the date and times for the 

1324 original recording match the dates and times of the tags, if the tags have been determined to be 

1325 inaccurate.

1326

1327 o The first item (diary identifier/DIA) is a mandatory and indicates the diary to which this 

1328 field refers. If this item refers to a segment in the SPD of Field 11.024, the value is 0. If 

1329 this item refers to a segment in the SGD of Field 11.026, the value is 1.

1330

1331 o The second item (segment identifier/SID) is mandatory and gives the segment identifier 

1332 from the diary given in the first item above to which the values in this field pertain.

1333

1334 o The third item (date of original recording/DOR) is optional and gives the date of the 

1335 original, contemporaneous capture of the voice data in the segment identified in the first 

1336 item of this field. See Section 7.7.2.3.

1337

1338 o The fourth item (tagged date/TDT) is optional and gives the date tagged on the original, 

1339 contemporaneous capture of the voice data in the segment identified in the first item of 

1340 this field. This item may be different from the value of the DAT above, if the tag is 

1341 determined to be inaccurate. See Section 7.7.2.3.

1342

1343 o The fifth item (start time of recording/SRT) is optional and gives the local start time of 

1344 the original, contemporaneous capture of the voice data in the segment identified in the 

1345 first item of this field. See Section 7.7.2.4 Local date and time for details.

1346

1347 o The sixth item (tagged start time/TST) is optional and gives the time tagged on original, 

1348 contemporaneous capture of the voice data at the start of the segment identified in the 

1349 first item of this field. This item may be different from the value of the RST above, if the 

1350 tag is determined to be inaccurate See Section 7.7.2.4 Local date and time for details.

1351

1352 o The seventh item (end time of recording/END) is optional and gives the local end time of 

1353 the original, contemporaneous capture of the voice data in the segment identified in the 

1354 first item of this field. See Section 7.7.2.4 Local date and time for details.

1355

1356 o The eight item (tagged end time/TET) is optional and gives the time tagged on original, 

1357 contemporaneous capture of the voice data at the end of the segment identified in the first 

1358 item of this field. This item may be different from the value of the END above, if the tag 

1359 is determined to be inaccurate. See Section 7.7.2.4 Local date and time for details.

1360

1361 o The ninth item (Source of the time/STM) is an optional character string that gives the 

1362 reference for the values used for TDT, SRT and END.

1363
47

1364 o The tenth item (comment/COM) is an unrestricted text string of up to 4000 characters in 

1365 length that allows for comments of any type to be made on the timings of the segment 

1366 recording, including the perceived accuracy of the values of TDT, SRT and END.

1367

1368

1369 22. Field 11.032: Segment Geographical Information/GEO

1370

1371 This field (Segment Geographical Information/GEO) refers to a segment identified in either 

1372 the snip diary SPD of Field 11.024 or the segment diary SGD of Field 11.026 and gives 

1373 geographical location of the primary subject of the Type-11record at the beginning of that 

1374 segment.. This field is only present if Field 11.024 or Field 11.026 is present in this record.

1375

1376 o The first item (diary identifier/DIA) is a mandatory and indicates the diary to which this 

1377 field refers. If this item refers to a segment in the SPD of Field 11.024, the value is 0. If 

1378 this item refers to a segment in the SGD of Field 11.026, the value is 1.

1379

1380 The second item (segment identifier/SID) is mandatory and gives the segment 

1381 identifiers from diary to which the values in this field pertain. The number of segment 

1382 identifiers listed is limited to 999. A value of 0 in this field indicates the segment 

1383 geographical information in this field shall be considered the default value for all 

1384 segments not specifically identified in other occurrences of this field. If multiple 

1385 segments are identified, they are designated as integers separated by commas. 

1386 o The third item (segment cell phone tower code/SCT) is optional and identifies the cell 

1387 phone tower, if any, that relayed the audio data at the start of the segment. It is a text 

1388 field. 

1389

1390 o The next six items are latitude and longitude values. See Section 7.7.3

1391

1392 o The tenth information item (elevation / ELE) is optional. . It is expressed in meters. See 

1393 Section 7.7.3

1394

1395 o The eleventh information item (geodetic datum code / GDC) is optional. See Section 

1396 7.7.3. 

1397

1398 o The twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth information items (GCM/GCE/GCN) are treated as 

1399 a group and are optional. These three information items together are a coordinate which 

1400 represents a location with a Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinate. If any of 

1401 these three information items is present, all shall be present. See Section 7.7.3

1402

1403 o The fifteenth information item (geographic reference text /GRT) is optional. See Section 

1404 7.7.3

1405

1406 o A sixteenth information item (geographic coordinate other system identifier / OSI) is 

1407 optional and allows for other coordinate systems and the inclusion of geographic 

1408 landmarks. See Section 7.7.3

1409
48

1410 o A seventeenth information item (geographic coordinate other system value / OCV) is 

1411 optional and shall only be present if OSI is present in the record. See Section 7.7.3

1412

1413

1414 23. Field 11.033: Segment Quality Values/SQV

1415

1416 This field (Segment Quality Values/SQV) refers to a list of segments identified in either the 

1417 snip diary SPD of Field 11.024 or the segment diary SGD of Field 11.026 and gives an 

1418 assessment of the quality of the voice data within the segment. It only is present if Field 11.024 

1419 or Field 11.026 exists in the record. This contrasts with Field 11.012 that gives the general 

1420 quality across the entire audio recording. Values in this field dominate any values given in Field 

1421 11.012. It is possible for each segment given in the associated diary to have different quality. 

1422 This field only accommodates a single quality value. If segments have multiple quality values 

1423 based on different types of quality assessments, then multiple subfields are entered for those 

1424 segments.

1425

1426 o The first item (diary identifier/DIA) is a mandatory and indicates the diary to which this 

1427 field refers. If this item refers to a segment in the SPD of Field 11.024, the value is 0. If 

1428 this item refers to a segment in the SGD of Field 11.026, the value is 1.

1429

1430 The second item (segment identifier/SID) is a mandatory list of integers and gives the 

1431 segment identifiers from diary to which the values in this field pertain. The number of 

1432 segment identifiers listed is limited to 999. A value of 0 in this field indicates the 

1433 segment quality information in this field shall be considered the default value for all 

1434 segments not specifically identified in other occurrences of this field. If multiple 

1435 segments are entered, they are listed as integers separated by commas.

1436 o The third information item (quality value/QVU) is mandatory and shall indicate the 

1437 segment quality value between 0 (low quality) and 100 (high quality). A value of 255 

1438 indicates that quality was not assessed. An example would be the Speech Intelligibillity 

1439 Index, ANSI 3.5 1997. 

1440

1441 o A fourth information item is mandatory and shall specify the ID of the vendor of the 

1442 quality algorithm used to calculate the quality score, which is an algorithm vendor 

1443 identification / QAV. This 4-digit hex value (See Section 5.5 Character types ) is 

1444 assigned by IBIA and expressed as four characters. The IBIA maintains the Vendor 

1445 Registry of CBEFF Biometric Organizations that map the value in this field to a 

1446 registered organization. A value of 0000 indicates a vendor without a designation by 

1447 IBIA. In such case, an entry shall be made in COM of this field describing the 

1448 algorithalgorithm and its owner / vendor.

1449

1450 o A fifth information item is mandatory and shall specify a numeric product code assigned 

1451 by the vendor of the quality algorithm, which may be registered with the IBIA, but 

1452 registration is not required. This is the algorithm product identification / QAP that 

1453 indicates which of the vendor’s algorithms was used in the calculation of the quality 

1454 score. This information item contains the integer product code and should be within the 

1455 range 0 to 65,534. A value of 0 indicates a vendor without a designation by IBIA. In 

Comment [ 71]: quality algorithm -> quality 

assessment algorithm

MARK: Again, no issue for me to make this 

change.
49

1456 such case, an entry shall be made in COM of this field describing the algorithalgorithm

1457 and its owner / vendor.

1458

1459 o The sixth information item (comment/COM) is an optional but shall be used to provide 

1460 information about the quality assessment process, including a description of any 

1461 unregistered quality assessment algorithms used. (if QAV= 0000 or QAP = 0)

1462

1463

1464 24. Field 11.034: Vocal Collision Indicator/VCI

1465

1466 This optional field (Vocal Collision Indicator/VCI) refers to a list of segments identified in 

1467 either the snip diary SPD of Field 11.024 or the segment diary SGD of Field 11.026 and 

1468 indicates that a vocal collision (two or more persons talking at once) occurs within the segment. 

1469 This field shall only appear if Field 11.024 or Field 11.026 exists in this record. 

1470

1471 o The first item (diary identifier/DIA) is a mandatory and indicates the diary to which this 

1472 field refers. If this item refers to a segment in the SPD of Field 11.024, the value is 0. If 

1473 this item refers to a segment in the SGD of Field 11.026, the value is 1.

1474

1475 o The second item (segment identifier/SID) is a mandatory list of integers separated by 

1476 commas and gives the segment identifiers from the diary named in the item above in 

1477 which vocal collisions occur. There may be up to 999 segments identified in this field. 

1478

1479

1480 25. Field 11.035: Processing Priority /PPY

1481

1482 This optional field (Processing Priority/PPY) refers to a list of segments identified in either the 

1483 snip diary SPD of Field 11.024 or the segment diary SGD of Field 11.026 and indicates the 

1484 priority with which the segments named in those diaries should be processed. There may be two 

1485 occurrences of this field: one for the segments identified in the snip diary, Field 11.024, and one 

1486 for segments identified in the segment diary, Field 11.026. If this field exists, segments not 

1487 identified should be given the lowest priority. This field is distinct from Field 1.006, which 

1488 givesa priority for processing the entire transaction.

1489

1490 o The first item (diary identifier/DIA) is a mandatory and indicates the diary to which this 

1491 field refers. If this item refers to a segment in the SPD of Field 11.024, the value is 0. If 

1492 this item refers to a segment in the SGD of Field 11.026, the value is 1.

1493

1494 o The second item (segment identifier/SID) is a mandatory list of integers, separated by 

1495 commas, and gives the segment identifiers from diary named in the first item above to 

1496 which the values in this field pertain. There may be up to 999 values of this field, one for 

1497 each segment identified in the diaries of Field 11.024 or Field 11.026. A value of 0 in 

1498 this field indicates the segment content information in this field shall be considered the 

1499 default value for all segments not specifically identified in other occurrences of this field. 

1500
50

1501 o The third information item (processing priority/ PPY) is optional and indicates the 

1502 priority with which the segments identified in the second item should be processed. 

1503 Priority values shall be between 1 and 9 inclusive. As with Field 1.006, 1 will indicate 

1504 the highest priority and 9 the lowest. 

1505

1506

1507 26. Field 11.036: Segment Content/SCN

1508

1509 This optional field (Segment Content/SCN) refers to a segment identified in either the snip 

1510 diary SPD of Field 11.024 or the segment diary SGD of Field 11.026 and gives an assessment of 

1511 the content of the voice data within the segment and includes provision for semantic transcripts, 

1512 phonetic transcriptions and translations of the segment. It may only appear if Field 11.024 or 

1513 Field 11.026 is present in this record. There may be an up to 9 occurrences of the subfield, one 

1514 for each segment identified in related diary. 

1515

1516 o The first item (diary identifier/DIA) is a mandatory and indicates the diary to which this 

1517 field refers. If this item refers to a segment in the SPD of Field 11.024, the value is 0. If 

1518 this item refers to a segment in the SGD of Field 11.026, the value is 1.

1519

1520 o The second item (segment identifier/SID) is a mandatory list of integers separated by 

1521 commas and gives the segment identifiers from diary to which the values in this field 

1522 pertain. There may be an 999 values of this field, one for each segment identified in

1523 related diary. A value of 0 in this field indicates the segment content information in this 

1524 field shall be considered the default value for all segments not specifically identified in 

1525 other occurrences of this field. 

1526

1527 o The fourth information item (transcript/TRN) is an optional text field of up to 10,000 

1528 characters and may contain a semantic transcription, a phonetic transcription, translation, 

1529 or comments on the segment. The text field should state the authority providing the 

1530 transcription, translation or comments. 

1531 Editor’s Note: We must fix the number of transcripts in each Field 11.036 Convener’s note: 

1532 If more than one transcript, a separate information item would have to be added for each. 

1533 This is awkward, but doable. 

1534

1535 27. Field 11.037: Segment Speaker Characteristics/SCC

1536

1537 This optional field (Segment Speech Characteristics/SCT) refers to a segment identified in 

1538 either the snip diary SPD of Field 11.024 or the segment diary SGD of Field 11.026 and gives 

1539 an assessment of the characteristics of the voice within the segment, including intelligibility, 

1540 emotional state and impairment. This field shall only appear if Field 11.024 or Field 11.026 

1541 exists in the record. 

1542 o The first item (diary identifier/DIA) is mandatory and indicates the diary to which this 

1543 field refers. If this item refers to a segment in the SPD of Field 11.024, the value is 0. If 

1544 this item refers to a segment in the SGD of Field 11.026, the value is 1.

1545

Comment [ 72]: Under the heading SCC only 

the temporary speaker attributes are included. 

Are the Permanent Attributes mentioned on p. 

13f. coded elsewhere?

Comment [ 73]: Page 50-52: I have one general 

point about the Segment Speaker Characteristics as 

well as the permanent attributes mentioned on p. 13). 

Is perceptual rating by the person who makes the 

entry the only source of an entry or are other sources 

used as well? For example, are educational level or 

speech impediment inferred based on the perception 

of the speech sample or are they looked up from 

external sources, such as a CV or a medical file? Is 

there any other possible source for the entries? 

Perhaps there should be a place where it can be 

specified what the source of the entry is: is it due to 

the listening action of the person who makes the 

entry or did the person who makes the entry use a 

different source than his/her own auditory judgment? 

As another general point about the Segment Speaker 

Characteristics (but not including the permanent 

attributes), I am thinking about whether it would be 

useful to include a category stress as another 

information item (there is a recent survey by 

Kirchhübel et al. 2011). I am not sure, but excluding 

a category stress does make sense on a practical level 

because stress often goes hand in hand with other 

phenomena, in particular emotion (stress is often 

associated with fear and anger) and vocal effort 

(stress often leads to loud speech, especially in 

“real”, threatening stress). It will therefore be 

difficult to perceive stress independently of 

fear/anger or increased vocal effort. What is left 

missing, though, if stress is not included, are certain 

physical stressors such as exposure to low 

temperature, high altitudes, acceleration, vibration 

etc. or task-related stress (physical or cognitive 

activity), e.g. talking while running, carrying 

something heavy or being involved with a 

cognitively demanding task. One way to capture 

those could be to subsume them under the IMP 

category. For example, if you accept my three-item 

list from above (effects of alcohol, effects of legal or 

illegal drugs/medication, fatigue/tiredness) you could 

add two further ones, such as “speaking under 

exposure to extreme environmental conditions” and 

“speaking during heavy physical or cognitive 

activity”.

Just as an additional comment in this context: I am 

glad you included “vocal effort” as a separate item. 

In our experience this is one of the most relevant and 

frequently occurring factors. Most importantly, we 

include fundamental frequency in our set of 

measurements and even slight amounts of vocal 

effort increase lead to a rise in f0. But informal tests 

have shown that it also affects automatic speaker 

recognition. I also agree that it is important to scale 

the degree of vocal effort.
51

1546 o The second item (segment identifier/SID) is a mandatory list of integers separated by 

1547 commas and gives the segment identifiers from Field 11.024 to which the values in this 

1548 field pertain. There may be up to 999 values in this field, one for each segment identified 

1549 in Field 11.026. A value of 0 in this field indicates the segment content information in 

1550 this field shall be considered the default value for all segments not specifically identified 

1551 in other occurrences of this field. 

1552 o The third information item (impairment/IMP) is optional and shall indicate an observed 

1553 level of neurological diminishment, whether from disease, trauma, medication or 

1554 substance abuse, across the speech segment. No attempt is made to differentiate the 

1555 sources of impairment. The value shall be an integer between 0 (no noticed impairment) 

1556 and 5 (assessed as life threatening), inclusive.

1557

1558 o The fourth item (language being spoken/LBS) is optional and gives the 3 character ISO 

1559 639-3 code for the dominant language in the segments identified in the first item above. 

1560

1561 o The fifth information item (style of speech/STY) is optional and shall be an integer as 

1562 given in Table 11-3. There may only be one value for each identified segment and will 

1563 indicate the dominant style of speech within the segment. If attribute code “8” is chosen 

1564 to indicate “other”, additional explanation should be included in the tenth item 

1565 (comment/COM) below. 

1566

1567 Table 11-3

1568 Style of Speech

Style of Speech Attribute 

Code

Unknown 0

Public speech (oratory) 1

Conversation 2

Familiar/intimate 3

Read 4

Prompted 5

Interview 6

Recited/memorized 7

Other 8

RESERVED FOR FUTURE USE only by ANSI/NIST-ITL 9-20

1569

1570

1571 o The sixth information item (intelligibility/INT)

1572

1573 o The seventh information item (health status/HST) is optional text noting any observable 

1574 health issues impacting the data subject during the speech segment.

1575

1576 o The eighth information item (emotional state/EM) is an optional integer giving an 

1577 estimation of the emotional state of the data subject across the segment. Admissible 

1578 attribute values are given in Table 11-4. Only one value for this item is allowed across 

Comment [ 74]: The information item IMP

(impairment) presents an interesting concept I 

haven’t thought about this way yet. I see what you 

mean: there is an overall sense of physical 

impairment or weakness that can be inferred from 

the speech and yet it is difficult to determine its 

causes (alcohol, disease etc.). Because of this 

difficulty, you propose that no attempts shall be 

made to differentiate the qualitative sources of the 

impairment, and instead you offer a quantitative 

scale on which the perceivable impairment can be 

rated in terms of its severity. You are classifying 

those impairments as neurological diminishments, 

which again is an interesting idea. You are probably 

right there, however in lack of deeper knowledge of 

the underlying medical causes I would not exclude 

the possibility that other than neurological factors are 

involved as well (perhaps factors such as relaxation 

of muscle tonus, change in heart rate or blood 

pressure, or effects on the endocrinological system). 

When you recommend not to determine the sources 

of a perceivable impairment you do have a point. I 

am just thinking about well-known situations where 

for example, somebody who asked for help and 

sounded garbled was refused help because people 

thought he was drunk where in fact he had a severe 

low blood sugar episode or was in other ways sick. 

Still, your concept of avoiding qualitative 

classification differs from the one we use in our lab. 

We try to differentiate at least the following types:

- effects of alcohol 

- effects of legal or illegal drugs/medication ...

Comment [ 75]: Under the influence of or 

abuse

Comment [USS76]: Exactly how does a life 

threatening impairment manifest itself in the 

speech signal? How about 0 = no noticed 

impairment to 5 = significant impairment.

Comment [ 77]: In the style of speech (STY) 

table, I recommend adding an entry “Repeated” in 

Table 11-3. Repeating along with or as an alternative 

to reading is a useful way to obtain text-identical 

material from the suspect. (We always also elicit 

spontaneous speech from the suspect where naturally 

there is no control over the text, but obtaining 

read/repeated speech with material that is textidentical to the speech of the questioned speaker can ...

Comment [USS78]: There is also a significant 

overarching variable of “whether the person 

knows they are being recorded or not”. This 

factor plays a huge role in speech style, etc.

Comment [USS79]: There are actually 

significant differences between conversational 

telephone speech and face-to-face conversation 

– might want to differentiate. Also 

familiar/intimate should probably be a layer 

separate from this heading.

Comment [ 80]: The category that belongs 

under the information item HST (health status) 

that occurs most frequently in our casework is 

symptoms of the common cold (e.g. hoarse 

voice, pitch lowering, increased nasality). 

Perhaps if you have the same experience, you 

could mention it in the text. There are of course 

many more health-related influences on speech 

(other than those addressed under the IMP ...
52

1579 the segment. If attribute code “8” is chosen to indicate “other”, additional explanation 

1580 may be included in the tenth item (comment/COM) below. 

1581

1582 Table 11-4

1583 Emotional State

Emotional State Attribute 

Code

Unknown 0

Calm 1

Hurried 2

Angry 3

Fearful 4

Agitated /Combative 5

Defensive 6

Crying 7

Other 8

RESERVED FOR FUTURE USE only by ANSI/NIST-ITL 9-20

1584

1585

1586 o The ninth information item (vocal effort/VEF) is an optional integer between 0 (no effort 

1587 or not talking) and 5(screaming/crying) which reports perceived vocal effort across the 

1588 segment. Only one value is allowed for this item across the segment.

1589

1590 o The tenth information item (vocal style/VSY) is an optional integer assessing the 

1591 predominant vocal style across the segment. The attribute value shall be chosen from 

1592 Table 11-5. Only one value is allowed for this item across the segment.

1593

1594 Table 11-5

1595 Vocal Style

Vocal Style Attribute 

Code

Unknown 0

Spoken 1

Whispered 2

Sung 3

Chanted 4

Rapped 5

Mantra 6

Falsetto/Head voice 7

Megaphone/Public Address System 8

Other 9

RESERVED FOR FUTURE USE only by ANSI/NIST-ITL 10-20

1596

1597

1598 o The eleventh information item (comment/COM) is optional and may be used to give 

1599 additional information about the quality assessment process, including a description of 

1600 any unregistered quality assessment algorithms used.

Comment [ 81]: -VEF specifies only values from 

normal to high vocal effort. Do you also want to 

provide values for low vocal effort ? The values 

could then run from -5 (LVE) thru 0 (NVE) to 5 

(HVE) 

Comment [ 82]: VSY (and EM): In the vocal 

style (VSY) table, I recommend including something 

involving laughter. There are many kinds of 

laughter, and laughter can be integrated with or 

isolated from speech to various degrees. There are 

also different levels of control over laughter; 

laughter can be a more or less direct emotional 

expression, but it can also be used as some form of 

conversational strategy. Perhaps one single entry 

such as “laughter (isolated or integrated in speech)” 

or “spoken with laughter” could do the job. I noticed 

that in the item EM (emotional state) you only have 

negative (or neutral) emotions. Perhaps another way 

to incorporate laughter is by including an entry such 

as “happy/joyful/laughing” in Table 11-4. Laughing, 

however is not always associated with joyfulness. 

Independently of the laughter question, I think one 

positive emotion should be included in Table 11-4.

Comment [USS83]: Shouting/yelling, while 

running or “in transit”

Comment [ 84]: Twelfth: The script for read or 

prompted speech should be included if at all 

possible.
53

1601

1602

1603 28. Field 11.038: Segment Channel/SCH

1604

1605 This field (Segment Channel/SCH) refers to a segment identified in either the snip diary SPD

1606 of Field 11.024 or the segment diary SGD of Field 11.026 and describes the transducer and 

1607 transmission channel within the segments. This field shall only be present if Field 11.024 or 

1608 Field 11.026 appears in this record. 

1609 o The first item (diary identifier/DIA) is a mandatory and indicates the diary to which this 

1610 field refers. If this item refers to a segment in the SPD of Field 11.024, the value is 0. If 

1611 this item refers to a segment in the SGD of Field 11.026, the value is 1.

1612

1613 o The second item (segment identifier/SID) is a mandatory list of integers separated by

1614 commas, and gives the segment identifiers from diary to which the values in this field 

1615 pertain. There may be an up to 999 values in this field. A value of 0 in this item indicates 

1616 the segment content information in this field shall be considered the default value for all 

1617 segments not specifically identified in other occurrences of this field. 

1618 o The third item (transducer type/TYP) is an optional integer with attribute values given in 

1619 Table 11-6 Editor’s note: For most of the acquisition sources in Field 11.006 

1620 REC_AQS as specified by Table 83, we won’t know the transducer type.

1621

1622 Table 11-6

1623 Transducer Type

Transducer Type Attribute 

Code

Unknown 0

Array 1

Multiple style microphones 2

Earbud 3

Body Wire 4

Microphone 5

Handset 6

Headset 7

Speaker phone 8

Lapel Microphone 9

Other 10

RESERVED FOR FUTURE USE only by ANSI/NIST-ITL 11-99

1624

1625

1626 o The fourth item (transducer/TRN) is an optional integer that specifies the transducer type 

1627 as unknown=0, carbon=1, electret=2, or other=3. Transducer arrays using mixed 

1628 transducer types shall be designated “other”.

1629

1630 o The fifth item (capture environment/ENV) is an optional text field of up to 4000 

1631 characters to describe the acoustic environment of the recording. Examples of text placed 
54

1632 in this field would be “reverberant busy restaurant”, “urban street”, “public park during 

1633 day”.

1634

1635 o The sixth item (distance to transducer/DST) is an optional integer and specifies the 

1636 approximate distance in centimeters, rounded to the nearest integer number of 

1637 centimeters, between the speaker in the segment and the transducer. A value of 0 will be 

1638 used if the distance is less than one-centimeter meter. Some example distances, handheld 

1639 = 5cm, throat mic = 0cm, mobile telephone = 15cm, VOIP with a computer = 80cm, 

1640 unless other information is available.

1641

1642 o The seventh item (acquisition source/ACS) is an optional integer that specifies the source 

1643 from which the voice in the segment was received. Only one value is allowed. 

1644 Permissible values are given in Table 83 of the Type-20 record. Any conflict between 

1645 this value and Field 11.006 REC_AQS shall be resolved by taking this item to be correct 

1646 for all segments identified in the second information item SCH_SID of this occurrence of 

1647 Field 11.038.

1648

1649 o The eighth item (alteration/ALT) is an optional, unrestricted string for a description of 

1650 any digital masking between transducer and recording, disguisers or other attempts to 

1651 change the voice quality.

1652

1653 o The ninth information item (comment/COM) is an optional, unrestricted string for 

1654 additional information to identify or describe the transduction and transmission channels 

1655 of the segment.

1656

1657 29. Field 11.39-050: Reserved Fields

1658

1659 These fields are reserved for future use by ANSI/NIST-ITL.

1660

1661 30. Field 11.051: Comments/COM

1662

1663 This field (Comments/COM) is an optional unrestricted text string of up to 4000 characters in

1664 length that may contain comments of any type on the Type 11 record as a whole. Comments on 

1665 individual segments shall be given in Field 11.024, SNP_COM, or in Field 11.026, 

1666 SGD_COM. This field should record any intellectual property rights associated with any of the 

1667 segments in the voice recording, any court orders related to the voice recording and any 

1668 administrative data not included in other fields.

1669

1670

1671 31. Fields 11.052-099: Reserved Fields

1672

1673 These fields are reserved for future use by ANSI/NIST-ITL.

1674

1675

1676 32. Fields 11.100-900: User-defined fields / UDF

1677
55

1678 These fields are user-defined fields. Their size and content shall be defined by the user and be in 

1679 accordance with the receiving agency

1680

1681

1682 33. Field 11.901: Reserved field

1683 This field is reserved for future use by ANSI/NIST-ITL.

1684

1685

1686 34. Field 11.902: Annotation information / ANN

1687

1688 This is an optional field, listing the operations performed on the original source in order to 

1689 prepare it for inclusion in a biometric record type. This field logs information pertaining to this 

1690 Type-11 record and the voice recording pointed to or included herein. See Section 7.4.1.

1691

1692

1693 35. Field 11.993: Source agency name / SAN

1694

1695 This is an optional field. It may contain up to 125 Unicode characters. This is the name of the 

1696 agency referred to in Field 11.004 using the identifier given by domain administrator.

1697

1698

1699 36. Field 11.994: External file reference / EFR

1700

1701 This conditional field shall be used to enter the URL / URI or other unique reference to a storage 

1702 location for all source representations, if the data is not contained in Field 11.999. If this field is 

1703 used, Field 11.999 shall not be set. However, one of the two fields shall be present in all 

1704 instances of this record type. A non-URL reference might be similar to: “Case 2009:1468 AV 

1705 Tape 5”. It is highly recommended that the user state the format of the external file in Field 

1706 11.051: Comment / COM . 

1707

1708

1709 37. Field 11.995: Associated context / ASC

1710

1711 This optional field refers to one or more Record Type-21 with the same ACN. See Section 

1712 7.3.3. Record Type-21 contains audio, video and images that are NOT used to derive the 

1713 biometric data in Field 11.999: Voice Record / DATA but that may be relevant to the collection 

1714 of that data.

1715

1716 38. Field 11.996: Hash/ HAS 

1717

1718 This optional field shall contain the hash value of the data in Field 11.999: Voice Data of this 

1719 record, calculated using SHA-256. See Section 7.5.2. Use of the hash enables the receiver of the 

1720 data to check that the data has been transmitted correctly, and may also be used for quick 

1721 searches of large databases to determine if the data already exist in the database. It is not

1722 intended as an information assurance check, which is handled by Record Type-98

1723
56

1724 39. Field 11.997: Source representation / SOR 

1725

1726 This optional field refers to a representation in Record Type-20 with the same SRN. 

1727

1728 40. Field 11.999: Voice record / DATA

1729

1730 This field contains the voice data. See Section 7.2 for details.