Patent ID: 7246061

Claim:
A method for the voice-operated identification of a user of a telecommunications line in a telecommunications network during a dialog with a voice-operated dialog system, comprising: establishing a telecommunications connection via the telecommunications network; identifying the telecommunications line on the basis of its line identification, including: recording utterances spoken by the user during at least one of a human-to-human dialog and a human-to-machine dialog via a module for at least one of speaker-identification speaker verification, text-independent speaker verification, and speaker classification; comparing the utterances with reference patterns previously stored in the module for the telecommunications line, so that: when a similarity between the utterances spoken by the user and at least one of the previously stored reference patterns is ascertained, then activating a user identifier stored for the ascertained reference pattern making it possible for the user to be uniquely identified; and when a similarity between the utterances spoken by the user and at least one of the previously stored references is not ascertained, then generating a new reference pattern and a new user identifier associated with the user, and storing the new reference pattern in the module for the telecommunications line; expanding the line identification identifier of the telecommunications line of the user placing a call to include the associated user identifier of the user identified; and during a dialog between the user and the voice-controlled dialog system, upon identification of the user, making available the line identification of the telecommunications line and the user identifier of the user placing the call to a server having a voice-controlled dialog system; ascertaining data previously stored for the user placing the call on the basis of line identification and the user identifier, and making available the data previously stored for the dialog interface so that, based on the known data pertaining to the customer, an individual user is promptable.