GTL, an innovator in correctional technology, education solutions that assist in rehabilitating inmates, and payment services solutions for government, has enhanced its patented voice biometric toolset with the addition of Voice IQ Search.
Voice IQ Search joins GTL’s suite of biometric applications collectively known as Voice IQ, which serve as key security features within the company’s Inmate Telephone System (ITS).
Voice IQ Search enables investigators to query for any calls where an inmate’s voice is heard – whether the call was initiated by that inmate or if the inmate entered the conversation after the call was already in progress.
(Members of GTL discuss data security in the corrections environment. Courtesy of GTL and YouTube)
In addition, through the course of normal call searching, investigators can see calls suspected to contain multiple inmate voices and display the names and IDs of the suspected voiceprints found within the call.
“Voice IQ has served as a great tool for facilities wanting to end inmate PIN theft or gather actionable intelligence for investigators,” said Eric Gonzalez, GTL Executive Director, Inmate Telephones and Intelligence Tools.
“Adding Voice IQ Search allows investigators to quickly find the calls with suspicious activity, making them more effective and far more efficient.”
Biometrics Provide Continuous Speech Analysis and Voice Verification
GTL’s voice analysis solution utilizes state-of-the-art technology to positively identify voiceprints for each and every call.
With the feature enabled, line-monitoring modules continuously and independently track the voices on both the inmate side and the called-party side during the conversation.
The technology is actively engaged in real-time and throughout the entire duration of a call to prevent fraudulent handover of the handset to a different inmate, thereby thwarting phone swapping by inmates and called parties.
Investigators are able to efficiently identify calls of interest and virtually eliminate the time it takes to search for and listen to calls pertaining to inmate phone fraud.
Detect Illegal Phone Swapping
By way of a real life example, Voice IQ Search was recently used in the case of an inmate who exchanged commissary goods for phone calls.
Although initial voice biometric was required to place the call, the inmate encouraged others to start calls and then pass him the handset.
The inmate mistakenly thought this would “hide” his conversations since they were taking place under another inmate’s PIN and initial voiceprint.
However, the new Voice IQ Search tool allowed investigators to search all calls where the subject inmate’s voiceprint had been detected, not just calls started under his PIN and voiceprint.
An alert is triggered as the system detects a speaker change event on either the inmate side or called-party side and a call recording wave form is marked to note the identification of a potentially new speaker on the line.
As a result, investigators were able to easily identify dialogue from the inmate that contained incriminating information.
As one of the most comprehensive, natural language speaker verification tools in the corrections industry, Voice IQ is comprised of:
- Voice IQ Initial – records and saves inmate voiceprints in a repository and accurately identifies inmates by requiring them to speak a specific phrase prior to making any calls.
- Voice IQ Continuous – detects potential fraud by comparing sound snippets from an inmate phone call to a recorded voiceprint to verify the inmate’s identity in real time during the call.
- Voice IQ Search – enables the user to search for recordings where a voiceprint is heard throughout a wide selection of calls within a date range.
“GTL handles over 275 million inmate telephone calls annually, totaling over 3.3 billion call minutes, and Voice IQ can scan for a specific voice print through every single inmate call recorded on GTL’s system, regardless of facility,” concluded Mr. Gonzalez.
Voice IQ Continuous inmate verification is a state-of-the-art, fully-integrated, real-time component of the GTL ITS, and GTL has been awarded U.S. Patent No. 8,509,736 for the feature.
GTL also has six awarded patents and eight patents pending for its voice analysis tools, and 14 patents and 17 pending for the ITS.
With the recent acquisition of Telmate, GTL has strengthened its suite of solutions for the corrections industry and expanded its community corrections portfolio with Telmate Guardian, a smartphone-based GPS monitoring solution.
As a trusted industry leader, GTL provides services to over 2 million inmates in more than 2,500 correctional facilities in the United States and Canada, including 33 U.S. departments of corrections, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and many large city/county/provincial facilities.
