“13. A voice print is a visual recording of voice. It mainly depends on the position of “formants”. These are concentrates of sound energy at a given frequency. It is stated that their position in the “frequency domain” is unique to each speaker.
Voice prints resemble finger prints, in that each person has a distinctive voice with characteristic features dictated by vocal cavities and articulates.
Voice-print Identification seems to have a number of practical uses. In England, in November 1967, at the Winchester Magistrate’s Court, a man was accused of making malicious telephone calls. Voice-print Identification (spectrograph) was used and the accused was found guilty.”
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“Often, it becomes desirable to have an accused person speak for the purposes of giving to the police an opportunity to hear his voice and try to identify it as that of the criminal offender.
A comparison may even be desired between the voice of an accused person and the recorded voice of a criminal which has been obtained by, say, telephone tapping. To facilitate proof of the crime the police may like that the accused should be compelled to speak,- and even that his voice as recorded may be converted into a “voice print”
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However, if the accused refuses to furnish such voice, there is no legal sanction for compelling him to do so, and the use of force for that purpose would be illegal.”
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“The scope of Section 5 needs to be expanded in another aspect. The general power of investigation given to the police under the Criminal Procedure Code may not imply the power to require the accused to furnish a specimen of his voice.
Cases in which the voice of the accused was obtained for comparison with the voice of the criminal offender are known but the question whether the accused can be compelled to do so does not seem to have been debated so far in India
There is no specific statutory provision in India which expressly gives power to a police officer or a court to require an accused person to furnish a specimen of his voice.”
Law Commission of India, 87th report
