Voice Biometrics Conference 2013-San Francisco came to a close yesterday after a succession of presentations and panels that highlighted the growing need for better authentication and the role that voice biometrics can play far beyond its original presence alongside IVRs (interactive voice response systems) in enterprise contact centers. We started with a keynote presentation by Michael Barrett, chief information security officer for PayPal and (perhaps more importantly) the chairman of the FIDO Alliance. He described how and why the clunky and largely ineffective use of UserName and Passwords for personal authentication is ready for its end-of-life.

He highlighted how protocols, platforms and products that conform to the architecture endorsed by the FIDO Alliance (which stands for “Fast ID Online”) will enable end-users (ideally, all people) to select the means of authentication that they find most convenient at the time they need to assert their respective identities. We started with such a broad discussion – “Let’s Replace Passwords” – to play up the fact that the world is ready for alternatives to current ways of authenticating and that using one’s voice as an identifier will have real value in an increasingly mobile, hands-free and eyes-front world in which biometrics are being taken seriously, and no single factor will suffice.

Participating by executives from Google, Nok Nok Labs, Validity and Agnitio, in addition to PayPal, in a subsequent discussion demonstrated how seriously the initiative is being taken by industry influencers and creative start-ups, alike. The protocol, along with several working use cases, is already very mature. It reflects a world where individual credentials and authentication mechanisms move to the access devices and are directly under the control of the end user. This should have great appeal to device makers and their owners, and it already started discussions at the conference surrounding whether banks, retailers or other businesses with financial stakes will find authentication at the endpoint to be acceptable to them.

To highlight the global nature of the voice-based authentication phenomenon, the next enabled the manager of contact centers and alternative channels from Avea, a large GSM/wireless provider in Turkey to show how his company registered the voiceprints from over 1.5 million subscribers in order to replace challenge questions, which both customers and contact center agents were finding to be annoying and expensive. The implementation uses software and systems from Turkish speech processing specialist Sestek and provided proof positive that solutions can scale quickly and provide rapid payback by shaving more than 20 seconds from customer care calls.

We followed with a presentation from a different technology alliance – VoiceVault, Geo Semiconductor and SpeechFX – to show how the speech recognition, speaker recognition and gesture analysis can be integrated into home electronics to support highly-personalized interactions with the family television. Then Day One came to a close with yet another partnership describing how enterprises are meeting the security challenges that are exacerbated by mobile workers, multi-channel commerce and high levels of real time collaboration. The speakers were from IBM and Nuance and reflected how voice biometrics, in conjunction with other authentication methods, help companies deal support secure communications in a “multi-perimeter world.”

Day Two kicked off with another validation point for voice biometrics. As multiple newspapers around the world were happy to report, Barclays Wealth and Investment advisors are using passive enrollment and passive authentication to simplify caller authentication to the point where customers can securely carry out high value interactions. As a sample, in the UK, the Telegraph’s reporter observed that “Barcleys Wealth customers will no longer need to answer security questions and remember pin codes to use telephone banking.” Similar stories appeared in the Wall Street Journal, ZDNet, Gizmodo and several technology and business outlets, with quotes from VBC-SF’s keynote speaker Matt Smallman, who is in charge of Customer Experience, Strategy and Change at Barclays.

Smallman’s talk was punctuated by a roundtable of executives from a variety of financial institutions, including Bank of the West, Vanguard, and Union Bank. In sum, they described how changes in customer usage patterns, especially online banking and mobile applications necessitate close evaluation of alternatives. At this point, only a handful of banks have integrated biometric-based authentication, but they are well-aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the alternatives before them.

Beyond banking, Day Two highlighted real-world use cases for voice biometrics, starting with a presentation from NICE Systems to describe how to “operationalize” the technology by leveraging existing contact center resources, especially call recording and analytics systems. This was followed by a thought-provoking discussion of “What You Can Learn from a Phone Call,” featuring the likes of Pindrop Security, TRUSTID and Voxeo, which are all companies that have developed technologies that can determine the risk associated with a phone call and its originator based on unique data about such things as the originating number, line characteristics, “device signatures” and the like.

In addition to deep technology discussions, Day Two featured a number of  “reality checks” giving solutions providers a chance to describe the state of the technologies and general acceptance of such things as using “black lists” and “white lists” for fraud prevention (via Victrio), adding face recognition (SpeechPro), mobile enrollment and authentication (Agnitio), eGovernment implementations (VoiceTrust) and embedded solutions for “Truly Handsfree” authentication and speech recognition (Sensory). The intent – which attendees tell us was largely successful – was to provide solid basis for assessment of “market maturity” which is always dependent on whether the underlying technologies perform as advertised (which is largely a “yes”) and whether businesses and device makers are ready to put them to use, which is largely dependent on whether they see demand from their own customers, clientele or citizens.

We closed with a panel of executives to talk about where we are and where we’re going. The consensus is that no single technology or architecture is about to dominate in the world of strong, convenient authentication. Therefore, solutions providers must be prepared to support all channels and form factors. I, myself, think that future success will depend largely on marketing efforts of service providers, device makers, retailers and even automobile manufacturers. It starts with linking strong authentication with “personalization,” while making spoken words or commands a preferred method for authentication. Though the largest implementations have, thus far, been in contact centers and associated with IVR platforms, the most promising areas for growth are taking place at the edges. That means in the background (supporting passive enrollment and authentication) and at the other extreme, inside individual devices or components.

Once that sort of positioning is accomplished, you’ll see the potential for voice-based authentication to ride the coat-tails of the personal virtual assistants, automotive entertainment systems and the next generation of remote controls for home entertainment and utility systems.

Categories: Articles

Tags: Voice biometrics, authentication, Contact Centers, Financial Services, mobile security