Aviva Australia has launched an application of voice biometrics for their telephone banking customers.
In a bid to improve customer service, convenience and security, the new voice biometric authentication will identify users by their unique voice characteristics, and direct them to the appropriate adviser.
National Australia Bank (NAB) rolled out the voice biometric system earlier in the week, and general manager Brett Feldon said: “The new deployment at Aviva Australia shows the maturity and growing acceptance of voice biometrics by some of the world’s leading financial institutions. In an increasingly competitive environment where there is heightened pressure to provide better customer service as well as boost security by removing the reliance on PINs and passwords, we expect other global players to follow their example.”
Voice Commerce Group, a UK start up, has launched its VoicePay service that allows customers to purchase products simply by speaking.
Users must first sign up with VoicePay and create their speech signature, which is linked to their bank details. Payments can then be made by simply calling a number and spitting some freestyle rap (not really - just your name, and ‘voice pay’).
The system is fraud-proof in that it contains technology that prevents recorded voices being used to mimic the true account holder.
Nick Ogden, founder, Voice Commerce Group, says: “Our voice signatures overcome the challenges of using other payment tokens or mechanisms because they do not require additional devices, passwords or pins and, after all, consumers now carry their own voices as well as their mobile phone wherever they go.”
Check out this video demonstration:
Working in over 50 countries, with the support of Mastercard and Visa, VoicePay is a hot new UK product to keep your eye on.
Mastercard declared “cash is dead” - but how long will plastic reign before voices and fingerprints surge to prominence?
A recent survey publication by Unisys suggests that America overwhelmingly supports the use of biometric security for data protection.
More than 70 percent of respondents will trust banks and government agencies to ask them for biometric data for identity verification. Additionally, fingerprints nearly tied personal passwords as the primary preferred authentication method, 73 percent to 72 percent, respectively.
“Despite ongoing fears about identity theft and fraud, and a willingness by consumers to adopt biometric technology, many organizations have yet to embrace this technology as an effective way to protect data and identities,” said Mark Cohn, vice president of enterprise security at Unisys. “Risk management only gets more challenging with the current financial crisis. Sophisticated cybercriminals know how to take advantage of increasing consumer anxiety as well as perhaps weaker internal controls at banks as a result of layoffs and reorganizations. Adoption of advanced biometric technologies as a critical security measure is a possible solution, but it also must be augmented with best practices and stringent policies and procedures.”
Older and higher income groups significantly favor fingerprint scans, with 76 percent of people aged 35-49 and 50-64, and 79 percent of people earning $50,000 or more approving this verification method.
Men and women are willing to use biometrics to verify their identity at similar rates. However, women are less supportive of advanced methods such as eye scans (57 percent) and hand scans (39 percent) when compared with men, 66 percent and 47 percent, respectively.
These results are very encouraging for the future of biometrics in North America, and consequently across the world.
The global biometrics industry is set to triple in size by 2012, according to an article published today.
The growth will be supported by government identity management schemes, criminal and surveillance systems and private sector initiatives.
The worldwide market value could surpass $7 billion.
Fingerprint biometrics will spearhead growth, followed by facial and iris recognition technologies, with Asia and the Middle East marked down as the key growth areas.
Biometric technologies that will be displayed at Intersec trade fair and conference include areas such as fingerprint scan, face recognition, automated fingerprint identification systems (AFIS), live-scan, iris recognition, middleware/biometric identity management software, vein recognition, multiple-biometric, hand geometry and voice recognition.
The Sagem Morpho MorphoFace Investigate (MFI) system has scored its first arrest in Pierce County, Washington. The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department used the MFI biometric facial recognition application to identify a suspect by comparing an automatic teller machine (ATM) photograph against the department’s digital database of 350,000 mug shots.
“MorphoFace Investigate provided the evidence needed by a Superior Court Judge to determine probable cause and issue an arrest warrant,” said Eric Hess, Sagem Morpho Product Manager for Biometrics. “This sets a new precedent in Pierce County for facial recognition biometrics.”
Sagem Morpho’s MFI is a robust and scalable facial recognition application that includes case evidence management, biometric matching, and forensic evaluation tools for investigative and crime solving tasks. The automated system enables law enforcement and intelligence analysts to quickly compare photographs of suspects against large databases of images, such as mug shot, driver’s license, or terrorist watch lists, and make identifications within seconds.
