How Voice Analysis Can Help Solve Crimes

Imagine you are a police officer investigating a crime in which somebody has made a threatening phone call. There may not be any physical evidence like DNA or fingerprints, but the person’s voice is captured on a recording. Experts can analyze the voice recording and compare it with the voice of a known suspect to find out how likely it is that they are the same person. This method is called forensic voice comparison. It works because people’s voices contain lots of information about them. Your voice tells a story about where you grew up and learned to speak, and your voice also depends on your individual biological make-up. In this article, we explain how this information is used to compare recordings of voices in criminal cases.