Patent Application
20170295279
The instant invention relates generally to telecommunication services that are provided through an institutional phone system, such as the phone system in a correctional institution. In particular, the instant invention relates to a system and method for delivering recordings of telephone conversations, such as inmate telephone conversations, to interested individuals, such as police and district attorney investigators.
In the correctional industry, inmate phone calls are often controlled through sophisticated call processing equipment. The call processing equipment controls various aspects of the use of the telephone in order to meet a variety of competing concerns including security, accessibility, and revenue generation. One objective of an inmate telephone system is to maximize the security of the system and to also maximize the revenue produced by the system while providing the inmate with accessibility to reasonable telecommunication services as authorized by the institution.
One feature that inmate phone systems may provide is the ability to maintain lists of allowed or blocked phone numbers by inmate, by class of inmate, or globally for a facility. Such lists allow the institution to regulate who an inmate can and cannot call. As an example of a list applied to a specific inmate, an inmate may be allowed to call his wife, but may not be allowed to call a co-defendant. As an example of a global list, all inmates may be allowed to call the local public defender's office, but may be disallowed from calling local judges. This feature balances the concern for security (e.g., disallowing calls to victims, witnesses and judges) with the concern of allowing an inmate with accessibility for legally mandated purposes (e.g., calls to the public defender) or personal reasons (e.g., calls to family members).
Another feature that an inmate telephone system may provide is the ability to monitor and record calls. This feature addresses the security concerns of the facility by allowing internal investigators to monitor what is occurring inside the institution and among the inmate population. This feature addresses the security concerns of society generally by allowing external investigators access to phone conversations that relate to the investigation of activities external to the institution.
Another feature that an inmate telephone system may provide is the recording and retrieval of call detail information (e.g., the identity of the caller, the called party, the time of the call, and the like). This feature is important to addressing the concerns of security and revenue. Call detail records allow investigators to research data such as the inmate that placed the call, the phone number that was dialed, what time the call was placed, and how long the conversation lasted. This research can often be performed by call, by inmate, by called number, by time of call and by any combination thereof Investigators can analyze this data to determine patterns and connections between people and places that are relevant to internal and external investigations. Call detail records are also the fundamental data required for billing calls and managing revenue.
Another feature that an inmate telephone system may provide is the ability to alert and/or notify an investigator of a call of interest. This feature allows an investigator to be notified when a specific inmate makes a phone call, when a specific phone number is dialed, or a combination thereof. This feature addresses the both internal and external security needs by immediately alerting an investigator when a person or pattern of interest is identified and allowing the investigator to immediately monitor the call, review the call details, review the call recording, or any combination thereof, for example to gather intelligence.
A function of substantially all inmate phone systems is to enable the billing of phone calls. Inmate telephone systems provide different methods for inmates to place and pay for calls. For example, call payment options may include collect calling (wherein the called party pays for the call), debit calling (wherein the inmate pays for the call with funds from their commissary account), pre-paid calling cards, and pre-paid accounts associated with a called number.
Another feature that an inmate telephone system may provide is the ability to allow free calls. Free calls may be allowed by phone (e.g., a particular device dedicated to free calls), by dialed phone number, by inmate, or by phone location. Typically, an individual is permitted to make one or more free calls upon arrest and/or incarceration. Free calls are permitted to allow the arrestee to call an attorney, to contact a bail bondsman, to notify an associate or family member that they are incarcerated, or any combination thereof. The free call feature addresses the concern of allowing inmates reasonable access to inmate calling services for legal and personal reasons.
Implementation of many of the features discussed above relies upon the ability to identify the inmate using the phone. In order to implement features specific to the inmate using the phone, the phone system must provide some way to authenticate and/or identify the user. This can be done, for example, through the use of a Telephone ID (TID), a biometric, or other authentication technique.
While the inmate phone systems and features described above address, to a certain extent, the balance between security, accessibility, and revenue, some of the features described above are not fully utilized. This may be due to the staffing overhead required to effectively implement the feature. That is, in some cases, utilization of a particular feature may create an additional burden on a correctional staff that is already operating within tight budgetary constraints.
Two features of inmate telephone systems that are often not fully utilized are the capability to record calls and make the calls available for export and the related capability to automatically notify an investigator when a call of interest is placed. In one typical scenario, when an investigator is notified that a call of interest has been made, the investigator must contact the correctional institution and request that the correctional staff locate, export, and ship the call(s) of interest to the investigator. Another typical scenario is for an investigator to request export of all calls for a particular inmate, all calls to a specific number, all calls by a particular inmate to a particular target phone number, all calls from a specific date range, some combination thereof, or the like.
Another shortcoming of many existing inmate telephone systems relates to the capability that notifies an investigator of a call of interest and permits the investigator to listen in to the call in progress. To be able to listen in to the call in progress, the investigator must be available at the time the call is talking place. In the event the investigator misses the call, some inmate phone systems provide the investigator with an alert that the call has occurred, for example by sending the investigator a message via e-mail or another messaging system. Upon receiving such notification, the investigator must go through the process of accessing the inmate phone and/or recording system, locating the call, and listening to it. Often, the investigator cannot perform these steps himself, and must instead request that the correctional facility find and export the call to the investigator for review, which shifts the burden of locating and shipping recordings to the correctional facility's staff.
Many inmate telephone systems require a series of manual steps to be carried out to locate and export call recordings requested by external investigators. This process can take several minutes to several hours, depending on the number of calls exported, the storage media where the source recordings exist, the type of media that the calls are being exported to, and the connectivity that exists between the source and target recording devices. These additional steps increase the time before the investigator receives, and therefore can respond to, actionable intelligence.
Requiring correctional staff to locate and export call recordings also affects security within the correctional institution. Many correctional facilities today are facing a constrained budget yet record high prison populations, requiring them to make efficient use of limited staff resources. While addressing requests from external investigators benefits investigations that enhance to the safety and security of society at large, doing so can divert correctional staff from maintaining the inmate population and the physical security of the correctional environment.
Accordingly, it is desirable to improve the accessibility of inmate telephone calls to investigators and others monitoring those calls.
Disclosed herein is a method of automatically distributing a recording of a phone call to at least one interested party, the phone call being placed by a calling party through an institutional phone system to a destination number. The method includes the steps of: associating one or more forwarding criteria with each of one or more interested parties; establishing the phone call from the calling party to the destination number through the institutional phone system; recording the phone call; and if the phone call satisfies one or more forwarding criteria associated with one or more interested parties, automatically distributing the recording of the phone call to the at least one interested party associated with the satisfied one or more forwarding criteria.
In some embodiments of the invention, the step of associating one or more forwarding criteria with each of one or more interested parties includes associating at least one calling party identity with at least one interested party. The step of associating one or more forwarding criteria with each of one or more interested parties may also include associating at least one destination number with at least one interested party, associating at least one time of call with at least one interested party, and/or associating at least one conversation content item with at least one interested party.
Optionally, the step of associating one or more forwarding criteria with each of one or more interested parties includes associating two or more of the following with at least one interested party: calling party identity forwarding criteria, destination number forwarding criteria, time of call forwarding criteria, conversation content forwarding criteria, and combinations thereof.
In some embodiments of the invention, the step of associating one or more forwarding criteria with each of one or more interested parties includes: establishing a plurality of data records, each data record including at least contact information for an interested party and one forwarding criterion; and storing the plurality of data records in a recipients database. Each data record may further include one or more delivery criteria for the interested party.
It is contemplated that the step of automatically distributing may include: setting a data flag when the recording of the phone call is complete; and if the phone call satisfies one or more forwarding criteria associated with one or more interested parties, distributing the recording of the phone call in response to the data flag to the at least one interested party associated with the satisfied one or more forwarding criteria.
The step of distributing the recording of the phone call to the at least one interested party associated with the satisfied one or more forwarding criteria may include e-mailing a copy of the recorded phone call to the at least one interested party, exporting the recording of the phone call to one or more physical media and providing the at least one interested party with access to the one or more physical media, uploading the recording of the phone call to a website, and/or providing access to the call via a hosted voicemail system. In embodiments of the invention where the recording of the phone call is exported to one or more physical media, it is contemplated that this may include: placing the recording of the phone call in an export queue; and exporting the recording of the phone call to one or more physical media from the export queue on a scheduled basis.
Optionally, the method further includes: establishing a second phone call from a calling party to a second destination number through the institutional phone system; recording the second phone call; determining that the second phone call does not satisfy any forwarding criteria associated with one or more interested parties; and storing the recorded second phone call into memory without automatically forwarding it.
In certain embodiments of the invention, the method also includes enclosing the recording of the phone call in a security wrapper prior to distributing the recording of the phone call to the at least one interested party. The security wrapper may provide authentication of the recording (e.g., for use as evidence in court), encryption of the recording, or both authentication and encryption.
The present invention also provides a method of automatically distributing a phone call recording to one or more interested parties, which generally includes the steps of: storing a plurality of recipient records in a recipients database, each recipient record including identity information for at least one recipient, forwarding criterion to specify the conditions for determining which recordings will be forwarded, and at least one delivery criterion to specify the delivery medium for forwarding recordings; establishing a phone call; recording the phone call; identifying one or more recipient records whose forwarding criterion are met by information associated with the phone call; and distributing the recording of the phone call to the at least one recipient included therein according to the at least one delivery criterion associated with the at least one recipient.
The step of distributing the recording may include: setting a status flag to indicate that a recording of a phone call is available for forwarding; and automatically distributing the recording of the phone call to the at least one recipient in response to a change in status of the status flag, whereby the distribution is accomplished using the at least one delivery criterion associated with the at least one recipient. Optionally, the step of distributing the recording may include: encrypting the recording of the phone call using an encryption key to create an encrypted recording; and wherein the distribution step is carried out by distributing the encrypted recording. The encryption key may be, for example, a public key associated with a private/public key system.
In another aspect of the present invention, a system for automatically distributing a phone call recording to one or more interested parties generally includes: at least one telephone device; a recipients database, the recipients database including a plurality of recipient records, each recipient record including identity information for at least one recipient, forwarding criterion to specify the conditions for determining which recordings will be forwarded, and at least one delivery criterion to specify the delivery medium for forwarding recordings; and a call recording distribution processor that identifies one or more recipient records whose forwarding criterion are met by information associated with the phone call and distributes the recording of the phone call to the at least one recipient identified therein using the medium associated with the at least one delivery criterion. The system may also include at least one forwarding agent, such as an e-mail agent, a web service agent, an export queuing agent, a voicemail agent, or a combination thereof, wherein the call recording distribution processor invokes the at least one forwarding agent to distribute the recording of the phone call to the at least one recipient. Typically, the system will also include at least one call recording archive in which is stored a plurality of phone call recordings.
The present invention advantageously provides functionality beyond the functionality provided by many inmate phone providers. The invention disclosed herein provides a method to automatically distribute an inmate phone call recording upon the completion of the call to one or more interested parties that have been approved by the facility administration. The present invention thereby addresses the shortcomings of existing inmate phone systems, leading to increased security and efficiency. Moreover, the present invention advantageously improves outside investigator access to recorded calls without adversely impacting the quality, security, or performance of the inmate telecommunications services.
The foregoing and other aspects, features, details, utilities, and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from reading the following description and claims, and from reviewing the accompanying drawings.
The present invention provides a method and system for distributing recorded calls of interest to one or more parties. Typically, these calls will take place at least in part using an institutional telephone system. The term “institutional telephone system” (or “institutional phone system”) as used herein refers to a telephone system installed in an environment wherein it is desirable to control or regulate telephone usage, including, without limitation, correctional facilities, military installations, hospitals, schools, business offices, and government offices. Though the invention will be described in connection with the corrections industry, and in particular in connection with an inmate telephone system that distributes recorded calls to investigators, it should be understood that the invention is not so limited. One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the principles disclosed herein may be employed to good advantage in any telephone system where it is desirable to monitor telephone calls (e.g., telephonic sales calls and technical support calls).
The call recording distribution system according to the present invention may be implemented as an enhancement to an inmate telephone system, such as the ITI Offender Communication System. Of course, the call recording distribution system disclosed herein may also be implemented in connection with other inmate telephone systems, including, but not limited to, Global Tel*Link's LazerPhone system, Securus Technologies' Secure Call Platform, Pay-Tel Communications, Inc.'s inmate telephone system, and PCS Corporation's Inmate Communications Systems. One of ordinary skill in the art will generally appreciate the functions and capabilities of an inmate telephone system. Thus, inmate telephone systems, such as those listed above, are described herein only to the extent necessary to understand the present invention.
The phone system server 16 is coupled to one or more databases, such as a call recording archive 18 (which stores recordings of calls made using telephone devices 12), a configuration database 20, and a recipients database 22. The term “database” as used herein includes, but is not limited to, relational databases in which a plurality of data sets are associated with each other and stored, preferably as one or more records. The database may be stored in a single medium or may be stored in multiple media interconnected by a network. The term “database” also includes any collection of related data organized and stored in an electronic format (e.g., a delimited ASCII file).
A caller using one of the inmate telephones 12 may be connected to a called party 24 through network 26, which may be the PSTN, a cellular network, VOIP, or any other telephony network technology. One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that an investigator 27 may also connect through network 26, for example to monitor a call in progress between called party 24 and a caller using one of the inmate telephones 12.
The call recording distribution system 10 also generally includes one or more forwarding agents to transport the call recordings to each of the designated recipients. The term “forwarding agent” is used herein to refer to any technology that is capable of electronically addressing and delivering a call recording file to a specified address or recipient without the involvement or intervention of a natural person. Preferably the agent is a computer program. Preferably, the call recording distribution system 10 includes one or more of the following types of forwarding agents: email agents 28, export queuing agents 30, web service agents 32, and voice mail agents 33.
An email agent 28 is a forwarding agent that is capable of sending a call recording as an email attachment to any valid email address. The call recording file can be attached to an email in any format, including, without limitation, Waveform Audio (WAV), Windows Media Audio (WMA), MPEG Audio, or any other standard media format. A call recording file that is attached to an email may optionally be compressed using a compression technology such as “.zip” in order to reduce the size of the attachment.
An export queuing agent 30 queues call recordings for later export to CD, DVD, or other media. In some embodiments of the invention, the export agent 30 automatically exports queued call recordings to a media burner, such as the Primera Bravo Series Disc Publisher, on a scheduled basis. It is also contemplated that recordings may be exported on an on-demand basis. By using a media burner, such as the Primera Bravo XR, the export queuing agent 30 can automatically create and label a CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, or other media of call recordings for each investigator or recipient that has calls of interest placed during a scheduled period. Once the automatic disc publisher has created the media, the media can be distributed to the investigator or other recipient, for example by a corrections officer the next time the investigator visits the correctional facility or via mail or courier service. The export queuing agent 30 may reside either on the inmate phone system itself (as shown in
A web service agent 32 distributes a call recording by invoking a web service handler on a remote system in order to upload the call recording to a website. The web service handler supports forwarding call recordings to third party systems or centralized call recording repositories. A web service handler may optionally compress the call recording using a technology such as “.zip” in order to reduce the size of the recording for transport across a network. Interested parties can then retrieve the call recording from the website; it is contemplated that access to the website may be protected by a username/password combination or other authentication routine such that only authorized users can access call recordings. Moreover, use of an authentication routine can enhance convenience by presenting an authenticated interested party only with those call recordings uploaded for that particular interested party.
A voice mail agent 33 makes call recordings available through a voice mail service, such as a dial-up voice mail service. For example, an investigator (e.g., investigator 27) may dial a phone number associated with the voice mail agent and voice mail service and enter a unique personal identification number (PIN) to access the voice mail system (e.g., through network 26). Recordings that have been identified for distribution to the investigator may then be provided as messages in the voice mail system. Upon accessing the voice mail system, the voice mail agent 33 may notify the investigator of new messages (e.g., new call recordings), and may prompt the investigator to play the messages back. The investigator may use the telephone keypad to enter commands, such as play, stop, skip, rewind, fast forward, save, delete, and the like, into the voice mail system. The investigator may be able to forward a call recording to another user, for example by entering another user's ID. In addition to forwarding the call recording as a voice mail, it is contemplated that the call recording may be forwarded according to the other user's preferences as contained in the recipients database, described below.
The email and web service agents 28, 32 can transport call recordings over data network 34, such as an IP based local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), or the Internet. A firewall 36 may be provided for security of the call recording distribution system 10.
The call recording distribution system 10 utilizes a set of configuration items to control behavior of the system. For example, configuration items may address email server setup, call recording format, export media size and location, frequency of automated export jobs, and web service destination URLs. Thus, configuration items facilitate adapting the call recording distribution system 10 to the various operational rules of the facility in which the system is installed.
Preferably, configuration items are stored in configuration database 20. One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate, however, that configuration items may be stored in a variety of other ways, such as in a properties file or an initialization file, without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
The call recording distribution system 10 also typically contains a database 22 of recipients that are eligible to receive distributed call recordings, for example via the email agent 28 or by distribution of physical media created through the export queuing agent 30. These recipients of distributed call recordings may also be referred to as “interested parties.” The recipients database 22 preferably contains contact and routing information for each recipient, such as an email address to which call recordings are to be sent. Information that may be stored within recipients database 22 (e.g., as data records, sometimes referred to herein as “recipient records”) includes, without limitation, recipient names, recipient organizations, recipient contact phone numbers, and recipient addresses. It is also contemplated that a single recipient record may include information for multiple recipients (e.g., two investigators participating in the same investigation).
The recipients database 22 may also contain the inmates, destination phone numbers, and inmate/destination phone number combinations of which the recipient is interested in receiving call recordings (referred to herein as “forwarding criteria”). Other forwarding criteria, including, but not limited to, call times, call durations, and conversation content (e.g., words and/or phrases uttered during the call, topics discussed during the call, patterns observed during the call and the like) may also be utilized. Audio mining of a monitored telephone conversation for conversation content is further described in U.S. provisional application No. 60/901,342, filed Feb. 15, 2007, which is hereby incorporated by reference as though fully set forth herein. In addition, it is also contemplated that a forwarding criterion may be associated with the preferred method by which a call recording satisfying the forwarding criterion is distributed (e.g., via email, via export queue, via web service, or some combination thereof) (referred to herein as “delivery criteria”). Alternatively, delivery criteria may be associated with the recipient (e.g., all call recordings distributed to this interested party are distributed via email).
Thus, a recipient record may include contact information and the like for one or more recipients, one or more forwarding criteria, and one or more delivery criteria.
Phone system sever 16 includes a call recording distribution processor. The term “processor” as used herein refers to a computer microprocessor and/or a software program (e.g., a software module or separate program) that is designed to be executed by one or more microprocessors running on one or more computer systems. The call recording distribution processor distributes call recordings to interested parties in accordance with the present invention.
One method of distributing call recordings will be described in connection with the flowchart of
In decision block 102, which may occur when the call is answered by the called party 24 and connected, the call recording distribution processor examines the call to determine if it satisfies one or more forwarding criteria. As described above, these forwarding criteria may be associated with entries in the recipients database 22. For example, based upon forwarding criteria, the system 10 may determine that all calls from this particular inmate should be distributed to one or more interested parties. Alternatively, the system 10 may determine that all calls to the dialed destination number should be distributed to one or more interested parties. As still another alternative, the system 10 may determine that all calls from this particular inmate to the dialed destination number should be distributed to one or more interested parties. If the call does not meet any forwarding criteria, the “NO” exit is taken from decision block 102 and the process ends.
If, however, the call does meet one or more forwarding criteria, the “YES” exit is taken from decision block 102 and the call is recorded in step 104. Decision block 106 represents a loop that awaits the termination of the phone call.
After the call terminates, the system distributes the call recording to all appropriate interested parties in step 108 (e.g., using one or more forwarding agents). Distribution is preferably performed according to the delivery criteria associated with each forwarding criterion satisfied by the call and/or each interested party receiving the distributed recording.
Preferably, the call recording is enclosed in a security wrapper that verifies its authenticity and guarantees that it has not been tampered with. For example, the call recording may include a header that includes the hash value of the call recording. Of course, other methods of watermarking, authenticating, and/or tamper-proofing the distributed call recording are within the spirit and scope of the present invention.
In addition to providing a digital watermark, hash value, or other security wrapper that guarantees authenticity of the call recording, it may also be desirable to provide a security wrapper that encrypts the call recording such that only authorized persons can access it. One example of such a security wrapper utilizes public/private key pairs. An authorized user may distribute her public key to the system administrator who will then encode all transmissions using the intended recipient's public key. Only the intended recipient can decode the transmission by using her private key—which should not distributed to anyone other than the owner who is the intended recipient. Other known security measures may also be used to help avoid an unintended recipient from intercepting the recording.
It is contemplated that the security wrapper applied to a particular recording may provide only authentication, only encryption, or both authentication and encryption. It should be understood that security wrapper preferences may be included in one or more of the databases, for example as data items in the recipient records stored in the recipients database 22.
The present invention may also be configured to set a status flag in connection with the initiation and/or status of recording activity. For example, a data flag may be set when the recording of the phone call is complete and the call recording is ready to be distributed to interested parties.
Although several embodiments of this invention have been described above with a certain degree of particularity, those skilled in the art could make numerous alterations to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the spirit or scope of this invention. For example, though the present invention has been described in connection with a single phone system server 16 including a single call recording forwarding processor, the methods described above may be executed by one or more computer systems, including suitable input, output, and storage devices or interfaces, and may be software implemented (e.g., one or more software programs or modules executed by one or more computer systems of processors), hardware implemented (e.g., a series of instructions stored in one or more solid state devices), or a combination of both. The computer may be a conventional general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, a distributed computer (such as two physically-separated computers that are linked via an intranet or the Internet), or any other type of computer. Further, the computer may comprise one or more processors, such as a single central processing unit or a plurality of processing units, commonly referred to as a parallel processing environment.
Therefore, it is intended that all matter contained in the above description or shown in the accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as illustrative only and not limiting. Changes in detail or structure may be made without departing from the spirit of the invention as defined in the appended claims.
This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 13/923,046, filed Jun. 20, 2013, entitled System and Method for the Automatic Distribution of Inmate Phone Recordings ('046 Application) which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The '046 Application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/852,642, filed on Sep. 10, 2007, entitled System and Method for the Automatic Distribution of Inmate Phone Recordings (now U.S. Pat. No. 9,357,061) which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 13923046 | Jun 2013 | US |
| Child | 15632066 | US | |
| Parent | 11852642 | Sep 2007 | US |
| Child | 13923046 | US |
