Opus Report Notes Upswing In Voice Biometrics
The number of consumer-facing voice biometrics solutions has in recent years been on the upswing. A recent report from Opus Research released Monday indicates strong growth in the field while acknowledging the impact the advent of unified communications (UC) might have on security infrastructure.
As the industry currently stands recent consumer-facing deployments of voice biometrics have turned out well. ABN-AMRO, for instance, has used voice biometrics solution with its contact center with great success. Bell Canada has increased sign ups for its Voice Identification Service, which has been available since mid-March. "The steady increase in enrollments is a good measure of the maturity of the emerging market," Opus’s report claims.
That voice biometrics wasn’t an immediate success might be due, according to Opus, in the low priority placed on the solution. While companies like EMC seek to heighten network security, they do so by controlling the flow of information and protecting confidentiality. Rendering "voice-based caller authentication almost tertiary" by comparison.
A possible problem, when it comes to future deployments, is the advent of UC. The constant monitoring of UC could undermine the sanctity of an infrastructure’s security. Opus’s report indicates three areas of concern: securing a network’s borders, maintaining the privacy of a conversation by encrypting the voice channel, and "in addition, the system can maintain ‘whitelists’ or ‘blacklists’ regarding devices that reside at the endpoints of various talk paths."
Naturally, these mainstays make it difficult to have the open network normally associated with UC; and possible solutions to these concerns are so far inadequate. The report mentions that simply blacklisting a certain device or softphone isn’t a catch-all, and that, "as the tools for enterprise-wide collaboration and real-time communications take hold, enterprisers are bound to attach a premium to detecting who’s calling, not just what they are using to initiate the call."
Ultimately, the report concludes, increased need for these solutions in a mobile environment will drive adoption of voice biometric solutions.