A Review of Voice Disguise in a Forensic Phonetic Context

Abstract

Voice disguise entails altering one’s voice deliberately with an intent to conceal one’s identity. Voice disguise is employed predominantly for two reasons: 1) disguising for the purpose of entertainment and 2) disguising with a criminal intent of concealing one’s identity. The thrust of this review is to better understand the second of these; i.e., its relationship to forensics. Voice disguise in the context of crime is usually employed by criminals in cases such as kidnapping, hoax calls, threatening calls etc. Owing to its formidable presence in the world of crime, it is imperative that numerous issues plaguing voice disguise must be addressed systematically. This paper presents an overview of what entails a disguise, its prevalence and the types of disguises usually employed by the criminals. It also reviews the research associated with the phonetic aspects that potentially contribute in the decoding of voice disguise.