Voice Biometrics

BUSINESS PROBLEM: The technology used to perpetrate identity theft is becoming more sophisticated, and fraud is more prevalent. As such, PINs and passwords are not as secure as they once were, so businesses and their customers are looking to increase their privacy with greater security measures.

TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION: Voice Biometrics
Voice biometric solutions qualify the speaker’s identity, essentially adding another countermeasure to combat identity thieves. In so doing, voice biometrics improve contact center efficiency by reducing call time.

Product: PerSay FreeSpeech
Delivery Method: Deployed in an on-premises configuration in contact centers.
Pricing: The cost model can be based on the number of voiceprints (i.e., people who are enrolled on the system) or number of channels (i.e., number of contact center agents or seats).
Functionality: FreeSpeech can serve either as an online layer of additional security during an interaction between contact center agent and customer or as an offline fraud detection tool. Independent of language, accent, and content, FreeSpeech transparently verifies the identity of a speaker during the course of a natural conversation with a contact center agent. It collects an audio sample from the customer, and a voiceprint is created during the course of the conversation with the contact center agent.
Business Benefits: Contact centers reap the benefits of a cost-efficient solution that reduces call duration, enhances customer experience, and successfully combats fraud and identity theft.
Contact: PerSay at 1-866-239-8515; www.persay.com.

Product: Diaphonics SpikeCore
Delivery Method: On-premises installation.
Pricing: A fixed base price for the software and installation, plus incremental fees for capacity, based on the number of concurrent verification sessions. Customers can have the baseline application installed, tested, and tuned for slightly less than $50,000.
Functionality: SpikeCore is designed to integrate with speech and touchtone IVRs, allowing partners and customers to deploy secure and scalable voice verification applications. It can be used as a delivery platform for the Password Agent application or as the authentication component of an automated customer service system. SpikeCore Web Service allows customers to quickly build voice verification applications. The solution leverages the Microsoft .NET framework. Features include voice verification, audio file format converters, and a data browser utility. Optional features include anti-spoofing software, speech recognition, and an embedded database.
Business Benefits: SpikeCore allows customers to swiftly and simply deploy voice biometric solutions. It’s scalability and extensiveness make it suitable for a variety of projects.
Contact: Diaphonics at 1-617-657-5106; www.diaphonics.com.

Product: RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone
Delivery Method: On-premises installation or Web-based.
Pricing: Varies, depending on the vendors involved.
Functionality: RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone is an authentication platform that includes voice biometric technologies from previously acquired Vocent and a voiceprint engine from Nuance Communications. It provides multifactor authentication for retail and commercial banking. It can analyze various phone channel-specific risk parameters, from the phone number itself to a biometric voiceprint and user behavior profiles, and then generate a risk and authentication score for every call received and every high-risk transaction conducted. Low-risk transactions proceed uninterrupted while transactions with a high risk score are verified with an additional layer of security, such as secret questions.
Business Benefits: RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone strengthens the voice channel for banking applications through its multifactor approach.
Contact: RSA at 1-800-495-1095; www.rsa.com.