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Voice Biometrics - Fad or Future

Posted by: VeHaggis @ 12/02/2010 1:49:12 PM

With incidents of fraud and identity theft continually increasing, it appears that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon of introducing new and ‘out there’ technology to deal with fraudsters; while customers are left wondering why it is becoming so difficult for them to access their own money. 

When new technology is introduced, generally fear, uncertainty, doubt and misinformation are communicated by ill-informed sources. Some of these comments and opinions are outlined in the following paragraphs. 

Since when did it go out of fashion to use good old PINs, passwords and security questions to carry out your banking needs? Nowadays there is an array of technological ‘solutions’ that are designed to not only protect you, but also make your life ‘easier’. For example, there are tokens that send an SMS code to your mobile by the bank and USB keys that supply a different security number for every transaction. And what about these voice biometrics; using your voice as a secure measure of accessing your money – surely this is an invasion of privacy.

Did you know that they keep a record of your voice on file? Doesn’t this provide impostors prime opportunity to break in and use a recording of your voice to access your accounts. Another thing, isn’t a bit obtrusive – using your voice as a way of identifying you? What happened to trusting the caller at the end of the telephone – if you say you are Joe Blogs, then that is who you are! What if you have a cold? Does this mean that you can’t do your banking because the system won’t recognise your voice? And the technology, it’s all new, so surely that means that it doesn’t work properly. It’s all security-driven - the customer is definitely not in mind when businesses are creating all this fandangle technology.

The above concerns are frequently asked by consumers when businesses approach security measures using new technology.

Currently, organisations, especially financial institutions, are using what they call two-factor authentication to securely identify their customers. This involves something that a person ‘knows’ – such as a PIN, password or security question, like ‘mother’s maiden’ name and something that a person ‘has’ – such as an SMS token or USB key. However, there is still opportunity for fraudsters to intercept this information and technology to access accounts. Banks are now looking for ways to further their authentication methods, to ensure that customers are better protected.

This is where voice biometrics technology comes into play. Voice biometrics is an ‘extra-factor’ authentication solution which uses something that a person ‘is’ such as their voice, as well as other biometric measurements like iris, fingerprint and so on. Voice biometrics makes it harder for fraudsters to infiltrate money and in turn, increases customer protection. Contrary to common misconceptions about voice biometrics, using your voice as a way of identifying you is actually less intrusive than other biometric measurements. You can simply verify your voice over the telephone and the system can tell that you are who you say you are. Unfortunately, companies can no longer trust the person at the end of the phone and they must take precautions to protect their customers’ money.

You can still access your banking if you have a cold. Your voiceprint is not a recording of your voice. Rather, it is a matrix of numbers that make up unique voice characteristics in your voice. Your utterance is compared to a voiceprint that is stored in an encrypted format on file, which will confirm whether you are who you say you are. For this reason, if a person has a cold they can still access their banking, because the measurement is not what they say rather, it is their characteristics that are being measured.

In terms of infancy of the technology, there are already a number of high profile organisations, such as National Australia Bank, Australian Health Management and Aviva, who have successfully deployed voice biometrics as a solution to the increasing trend of identity theft. Not only does voice biometrics make it more difficult for impostors to infiltrate, it makes the experience for customers more pleasant because they no longer have to answer the ‘security’ questions every time they call their bank. Instead, they repeat a series of digits and are then securely transferred through to their desired destination.

Why not follow the example of others and embrace the future with voice biometrics.

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