Human speech is transported through a voice and data converged Internet network to recognize its content, verify the identity of the speaker, or to verify the content of a spoken phrase by utilizing the Internet protocol to transmit voice packets. The voice data (4) entered is processed and transmitted in the same way as Internet data packets over converged voice and data IP networks. A voice-enabled application sends a message (5), which is decoded by the speech API (2) and the appropriate control and synchronization information is issued (7) to the data preparation module (9) and to the speech engine (3). Standard voice over IP includes a speech compression algorithm and the use of RTP (Real Time Protocol), enabling additional processing of the human voice anywhere in the network to perform speaker verification, with or without the knowledge of the speaker.