Documentation

• VoiceIT API Docs can be found here
• The 120 supported languages and dialects can be found here

Prerequisites

• A VoiceIt account. VoiceIt offers an API for voice biometrics that we’ll be using during this blog. Follow this link to sign up.
• A Twilio account. Sign up here for a free trial
• An Airtable account. Sign up here for a free trial. You could use a different database or CRM here as well with some code changes.
• A Linux or MacOS terminal with npm and the Twilio CLI installed

Note: Currently this project is deployed in node v14

Setup

Environment variables

• Add .env file to the root folder

Required variables:

• Twilio: ACCOUNT_SID, AUTH_TOKEN
• VoiceIt: VOICEIT_API_KEY, VOICEIT_API_TOKEN, CONTENT_LANGUAGE, VOICEPRINT_PHRASE
• Database: DATABASE_URL, AIRTABLE_API_KEY, AIRTABLE_BASE_ID

Example:

VOICEIT_API_KEY='key_********************'
VOICEIT_API_TOKEN='tok_*********************'
CONTENT_LANGUAGE=en-US
VOICEPRINT_PHRASE='Never forget tomorrow is a new day'
DATABASE_URL=test
AIRTABLE_API_KEY='key************'
AIRTABLE_BASE_ID='app*********'

Airtable

1. Log in to Airtable. Create a new workspace or use an existing one to create a new base.
2. Name the table “Voice Biometric”
3. Rename the default primary field to “Phone Number”. Add another field for “Biometric UserId”. Your table should look like this:
4. You’ll need this table’s Base ID to programmatically make changes. You can find that in the URL. For example, if your full URL is https://airtable.com/appXXXXXXXXXX/tblYYYYYYYYYYYY/viwZZZZZZZZZZZZblocks=hide, your Base ID is the section beginning with “app”: appXXXXXXXXXX. Update the AIRTABLE_BASE_ID value in your .env file.
5. Copy your Airtable API Key from your Airtable Account page. Paste this value in your .env file after AIRTABLE_API_KEY=.

Deploy to Twilio Serverless

• In your terminal, navigate to the root directory of this project.
• Run npm install to install the necessary packages.
• Authenticate into your Twilio account in the command line by running the following command, replacing the default values with your own. You can find these values in the Twilio Console.

export ACCOUNT_SID=ACXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
export AUTH_TOKEN=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

• Run twilio serverless:deploy to deploy your functions and assets to Twilio’s serverless environment.

Connect your Phone Number

• If you do not already have a Twilio Phone Number, follow these instructions to buy one. Access the Active Numbers page in the Console. Click the desired phone number to modify.
• Scroll to the Voice & Fax section. Under “Configure With”, select “Webhook, TwiML Bin, Function, Studio Flow, Proxy Service” from the drop down.
• Under “A Call Comes In”, select “Function”.
• Under “Service”, select “voiceit”
• Under “Environment”, select “dev-environment”.
• Under “Function Path”, select “/voice/incoming_call”.

Flow of the Demo

Verification

Flow:

1. Create a user
   • Made with VoiceIt.CreateUser API Call within incoming call
2. Enroll voice
   • Users must have at least 3 enrollments to verify
3. Verify
   • Users that do not have enough enrollments will be redirected to enrollments
   • If a user has bad enrollments(i.e. lots of background noise, poor connection at the time of the call, etc.), they can be deleted and redone. You can also check enrollments for a particular user in dashboard

Identification

This can can be useful if there are multiple users on the same phone number.

Flow:

1. Create a group
2. Add users to the group
   • Users must have at least 3 enrollments to be identified
   • For efficiency try to stay below 40 users in each group
3. Make an identification call

Note the phrase and content language can be any of the 120 supported language and can be any custom phrase you add to your account