Audio Forensics is the application of analysis and processing to further the investigative use of recorded audio. This covers three general areas which are enhanced to improve the signal quality and intelligibility of signals of interest, such as speech, by attenuating noise or otherwise increasing the signal-to-noise ratio. Authentication analysis of signals and file data to establish provenance and originality of a recording, and comparison of audio signals, speech and other acoustic events, to better understand unknown or disputed details.
Audio forensic services can be thought of as a coin with two important sides: research and practice. As a practice, audio forensics is a forensic science. This means that the factors important in all forensic disciplines are no less important here. Working as a scientist within the forensic construct, an audio forensics practitioner then relies heavily on the other side of the coin where tools, methods, and techniques are developed through research and publication. Audio forensic services are used in many fields all over the world, with a lot of uses for them. Some of them are:
Authentication of Recordings
Used mostly by law enforcement agencies, Audio forensic services are mostly used by law enforcement agencies to check the authenticity of a recording. This tells them if a recording presented as evidence in an investigation is authentic, has not been tampered with, or altered in any way. This is especially important in cases where the integrity of the evidence is important, as any evidence with tampering or alteration is automatically inadmissible in court.
With audio forensic services, each sound wave can be analyzed separately, telling if it originally belongs to the clip or whether it was tampered with or altered in any way. This way, voice recordings of confessions and other evidence caught on audio can be verified and used in legal proceedings accordingly.
Enhancement and Restoration
Audio forensic services allow for an audio clip to be enhanced for clarity. This allows them to easily clarify any speech on the audio clip by reducing the noise, eliminating any distortion, or simply just improving the overall quality of the audio. With the modern tools, enhanced techniques and research that has overall improved audio forensic services, any indistinct or initially wasteful recording can easily be retrieved and used perfectly.
Enhancement and restoration of an audio clip allows law enforcement agencies to easily sift through various noises and distortions to pull up the perfect audio clip they require, making it easier to pull important information from them
Voice Identification
With the help of audio forensic services, experts can analyze voice recordings to identify or verify the speakers. Like fingerprints, the frequency of the voice and the sound waves made by the voice of each human are unique to one another. With the help of audio forensic services, experts can easily verify if the people on the recording are the ones they think they are. This is mostly used in criminal cases when the identity of the speaker needs to be known, making it easier for them to tell to whom the voice belongs to.
Voice identification has allowed law enforcement agencies to keep an eye on fugitives on the run, keeping track of their activities, and allowing them to identify if the person on the audio clip is exactly who they think it is.
Comparison and Reconstruction
With the help of audio forensic services, experts can easily determine if different recordings come from the same source or event or not. By comparing the sound waves, and the distortion and noise in the back, they can easily tell the source of the audio clips, pointing in the right direction. Audio forensic services also allow them to reconstruct entire conversations recorded in bits and pieces, giving them a whole background of what actually happened at the certain time the recordings were taken.
