Points Of Presence

By Laura Guevin
Editorial Director, Communications Outsourcing

Have you ever called a customer service phone number and been prompted to speak your query? Say, for instance, you call an airline and ask for domestic flight information. Oftentimes, the automated reply is, "I'm sorry, I did not understand your response. Please repeat your query." Repeat this enough times and it can be downright frustrating, to the point where you're punching the zero key on your phone dial pad, angrily trying to reach a live person.

Granted, this isn't always the case, and speech recognition technologies work well enough to connect your call and get you the information you're seeking -- most of the time. Perceptions of this technology are changing as accuracy has improved, and companies are discovering it can be used in tandem with other voice technologies. There's certainly no doubt that speech recognition can improve our lives in numerous ways, and I'm confident that once this technology matures a bit more, it will gain widespread popularity. Cahners In-Stat Group has predicted sales of speech recognition engines will reach $2.7 billion by 2005, and their use has already become mainstream in interactive voice response (IVR) systems. I'm optimistic that some day soon, this technology will be used for everything from booking an airline flight to transferring money between your bank accounts, and that brings me to another logical, but different use of the technology: Voice verification.

THE SECURITY BOOST
Security is an important issue for most aspects of life, and the prevalence of online transactions, as well as last September's events, have certainly boosted our need to look for improved approaches to securing our property and transactions. Increasingly, customers want added assurances that their personal information is being properly safeguarded.

Let's say, for example, that I want to transfer money from my checking account into my savings account (we can all dream, right?). I call my bank's toll-free customer service number, and key in or speak my account number to gain access to my account information. I am also required to enter the last six digits of my social security number. Right now, that is all the information required to access my accounts. But some day soon, as I'm speaking my account number, my voice will be compared to a pre-recorded voiceprint contained in the bank's database, and the result will be used to positively identify me as the accountholder. That is the beauty of voice verification, which is gaining prominence for authentication and access to all sorts of information.

Voice verification is an example of a biometric technology, a growing market in which physical characteristics are used to identify a person. Fingerprint and facial scans are also among the most popular biometric technologies, as are iris and retina scans. But voice verification is a logical fit in many situations, since we already use voice technology for a number of applications that are just begging for an additional layer of security. Speech-recognition developers Nuance, SpeechWorks, and InterVoice-Brite also see the opportunities for this type of technology, and each company offers voice authentication/verification products.

The Nuance Verifier 3.0 uses voiceprints of an individual's name, phone number, social security number, account number, or PIN to authenticate that person using the company's "It's Me" technology. The technology has been tightly integrated with the Nuance's speech recognition software, and supports a number of languages.

The SpeechSecure product from SpeechWorks uses voice verification technology from T-Netix SpeakEZ and Veritel in a solution for over-the-phone and e-commerce applications, targeted at service providers, and the health and finance industries. The SpeechWorks DialogModules integrate biometric verification capabilities with SpeechWorks speech recognition solutions. SpeechAccess Speaker Verification is part of InterVoice-Brite's suite of speech technology solutions, aimed at the financial, healthcare, travel, and insurance industries, as well as human resources departments.

Other leading vendors in the voice verification space include VeriVoice, which uses the patented VeriVoice Security Lock software, featuring implementations for recording voice via a microphone or telephone. The Voicevault engine from Buytel offers verification via the phone, Internet, or the Web, geared toward the telecom, x-commerce, financial services, and public services markets. OTG (the Ottawa Telephony Group) offers the SecurPBX identification solution specifically for preventing telecommunications fraud via long-distance trunk, voice-mail access logs, IVR systems and audio response units, call centers and transaction agents, modem pools, conference bridging, and maintenance and e-mail ports. The solution uses the SpeakEZ Voice Print technology to eliminate access to unauthorized callers.

Additional players in this space include Persay, a subsidiary of Comverse Technology offering the Orpheus 2.0 Speaker Verification Platform. The VoiceCheck technology from Veritel is language independent, and is suitable for small applications as well as large-scale implementations. Vocent offers the Voice Secure suite of authentication products tailored for resetting passwords, medical privacy, and controlled airport access.

TMC's NEWEST MAGAZINE, NEWSLETTER
My interest in voice verification technology is not coincidental. I'm in the process of launching an online magazine and e-mail newsletter called BiometriTech, which will debut this month and cover all aspects of the biometrics market. Voice verification is a logical extension of TMC's existing coverage of the telecommunications market and speech recognition technologies, and as I mentioned earlier, it lends itself to a number of applications with existing speech rec products, as well as new security products.

Of course, there are many more types of biometric technologies to explore, and I'll reserve those discussions for the new magazine. In the meantime, visit our Web site -- www.biometritech.com -- to sign up for the newsletter for updates and information on voice verification and other biometric technologies.

Laura Guevin welcomes your comments at lguevin@tmcnet.com.