Securing Customer Data with Voice Biometrics: Keeping the Bad Guys at Bay
A year ago, organizations across the globe were reluctant and sulked about the idea of work from home; but now the COVID-19 pandemic has made everyone adapt to a work from home lifestyle. Along the same vein, every organization is moving towards everything that’s “contactless.” From banks to telecom to corporates, everybody wants a secure channel of communication, digital transactions, and business conversations without worrying about privacy and security breach. Today, Voice biometrics technology provides both contactless and frictionless authentication mediums for IVR call verification, secure remote logins, govt agencies, contact centers, and telecom companies. With the help of anti-spoofing layering, these new-age biometrics channels detect synthetic voice speech and create fraud defense within a few seconds of a call.
What is Voice Biometrics?
Voice Biometrics is a part of AI-based speech recognition technology that uses voice imprint to authenticate an individual’s identity. Various vocal features and attributes such as pronunciation, pitch, tone, dialect, and style of speech are analyzed before completing the verification/authentication process for users.
Key Findings
- As per Emergen Research, the Voice Biometrics market is projected to rise with a CAGR of 23.6% and reach USD 4.90 Billion by 2027
- According to Fortunly, the cost of cyberattacks in the banking industry reached $18.3 million annually per company
- Another report published by Fortunly, states that the finance domain accounts for 14% of all data breaches. In 47% of all financial data breaches, the victim is always a bank
Doesn’t it depict the possibilities of high adoption rates of Voice Biometrics in the years to come?
How to pick the right Voice Biometrics technology partner?
While every technology partner claims to have the best biometrics solutions and products, it is crucial to chalk out a few criteria before deciding who sells the best technology. Remember, it is not just about buying cost-effective solutions, but more importantly, how Voice Biometrics technology solutions can address some of your organization’s underlying security challenges.
Some of the critical factors to consider before picking your speech recognition partner -are ease of integration, deployment options, flexibility, reliability, scalability, security robustness, accuracy, anti-spoofing layers, resilience, and last but not the least cost-effectiveness of the solutions.
Reasons to implement Voice Biometrics
There are several reasons why an organization may want to implement voice biometrics:
- Security: Unlike other authentication methods involving passwords that can be compromised, a person’s voiceprint cannot be forged as it is created by analyzing various parameters such as pronunciation, dialect, speed of speech, accent, and diction. Even if fraudsters try to crack the voiceprint with speech synthesis or recorded voice, they cannot spoof the anti-spoofing layers of voice biometrics systems . Voice biometrics can be an important component of a comprehensive security strategy for any organization that handles sensitive data.
- Multi-channel integration-The ease of integration of Voice Biometrics across various platforms like WhatsApp, IVR, website makes it an excellent choice for financial enterprises. Irrespective of the integration platform, the Voice Biometrics solution is a seamless fit for cross-channel engagement. This speech technology provides seamless and frictionless verification and offers consistent multi-channel security -all at the same time
- Privacy: It turns out not many customers are happy to share specific personal details like maiden’s name, first job, pet’s name, etc., even for security questions during password reset requests. Avivah Litan, one of Gartner’s fraud analysts, said that call center staff’s use of external security questions accounted for a 15 to 20 percent failure rate for one financial institution. Besides, rather than memorizing their passwords or keeping it saved in their phones, customers can carry out the verification process within a few seconds of smooth conversation in a voice biometrics system
- Cost optimization: In today’s world, the contact centers of financial institutions and banks receive enormous customer calls every month with queries about bill payments, password resets, and document verification. With such bombarding situations, each customer rep needs to spend time with each caller, leading to increased AHTs-most of the time. However, AI-enabled voice biometrics solutions can eliminate lengthy steps involved in verification processes, and save costs spent on each customer. In parallel, agents can focus on other complex issues without compromising on customer experience.
- Scalability: Voice biometrics can be easily scaled to accommodate a large number of users, making it a suitable solution for organizations of any size.
- Compliance: Voice biometrics can help organizations comply with data protection regulations and standards, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
What features should you expect from a Voice Biometrics solution?
While many organizations consider convenience, cost, and familiarity while selecting the best voice recognition technology, try looking at the following features as well:
- Speech Independent: Should recognize unique voice patterns, phrases, accents
- Noise tolerant, secure, and accurate: Performs real-time speech analytics and scans over 140+ features of the human voice, making verification highly accurate and fool-proof
- Flexible Integration Options: Should offer seamless integration across all devices and CRM systems
- Hassle-free deployment: Accessible on various deployment channels and platforms, including in-app payments
- Speech Quality Tracking: Detects noise levels and speech quality for better processing
- Faster Voice Recognition Identification: Recognizes and enrolls voice instantly within a few seconds
- Strong Anti-spoofing layer: Should have strong anti-spoofing verification technology to detect recording or synthesized speech/voice
Now, pick the one that suits your requirements the best!
The Future of Voice Biometrics: Potential Advancements and Innovations
The use of voice biometrics technology is also expected to expand beyond authentication and identification to other areas, such as healthcare and customer service. In healthcare, voice biometrics technology can monitor patients’ health and detect changes in their voice patterns that may indicate a health condition. In customer service, voice biometrics technology can improve the customer experience by enabling more personalized and efficient interactions with customer service representatives.
One of the most exciting potential advancements in voice biometrics technology is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to improve the accuracy and reliability of voice biometric systems. By using AI and ML, these systems can learn and adapt to the unique characteristics of an individual’s voice, making them more resistant to impersonation and fraud. Additionally, the use of AI and ML can also make voice biometric systems more efficient and user-friendly, making them more accessible to a wider range of users.
Another potential innovation in voice biometrics technology is the integration of voice biometrics with other technologies such as facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, and iris recognition. This could lead to the development of multi-factor authentication systems that combine multiple forms of biometric data for enhanced security. Additionally, the integration of voice biometrics with other technologies such as virtual assistants and smart home devices could enable new forms of hands-free control and interaction.
Overall, the future of voice biometrics technology is bright, with many potential advancements and innovations that could lead to more secure, efficient, and user-friendly systems. As the technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see voice biometrics become an increasingly important and widely-used tool for authentication and identification.
Challenges and Limitations of Voice Biometrics Technology: How to Overcome Them
The voice biometrics system has come a long way in recent years, but several challenges and limitations still need to be overcome to reach their full potential. One of the main challenges is the issue of accuracy, as voice biometrics systems can sometimes struggle to accurately identify individuals, particularly in noisy environments or when the speaker has a heavy accent or speech impediment. Additionally, there is a security concern, as some individuals may be able to impersonate another person’s voice to gain access to sensitive information. Finally, there is a need for more user-friendly interfaces, as many people are hesitant to use voice biometric systems due to a lack of understanding of how they work.
To overcome these challenges, researchers and developers are working on improving the accuracy of voice biometrics systems through more advanced algorithms and machine learning techniques. Additionally, they are looking at ways to improve security, such as using multiple biometric factors combined with voice recognition, such as facial recognition or fingerprint scanning. Finally, efforts are being made to make voice biometrics systems more user-friendly by providing clear explanations of how the technology works and offering more intuitive interfaces. These challenges are likely to be overcome soon with continued research and development, allowing voice biometrics technology to reach its full potential.
The Way Forward
Undeniably, financial fraud has given severe headaches to Information Security Officers worldwide. Moreover, with human agents’ involvement in security-sensitive processes, there’s always a loophole from where fraudsters can enter and trigger data breaches. With knowledge-based authentication nearing to become obsolete, voice biometrics solutions will help financial institutions sail through security turbulences smoothly. Having said that, financial enterprises that have the best technology partner with avant-garde speech recognition solutions will not face any hassle while ramping up their security and fraud prevention strategies and will stay relevant and important for their customers even during economic meltdowns.
Ready to build robust security in your authentication gateways?
Our Voice Biometrics solution, armour365 is engineered to execute effortless end-to-end authentication and fraud prevention by verifying customers’ identity with the voice within seconds.
Frequently asked questions
What are the advantages of using voice biometrics for authentication?
Advantages include high levels of security, ease of use, and reduced costs compared to traditional authentication methods.
Is voice biometrics reliable?
Voice biometrics is a highly reliable method of authentication, with a low rate of false rejections and false acceptances.
Can voice biometrics be used in multi-factor authentication?
Yes, voice biometrics can be used in conjunction with other authentication methods, such as passwords and fingerprint recognition, to provide added security.