[February 15, 2005]

Dynamic Duo to Fight Identity Theft

By David Sims, TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist

BIFF! OOF! Intervoice has announced an agreement with Vocent Solutions to increase the security of Intervoice speech-enabled solutions to combat fraud and identity theft. KA-POW!

The partnership will focus on the fight against fraud and identity theft.

Integrating with the Intervoice Omvia Voice Framework, Vocent’s voice authentication products combine voice biometrics with data analytics and risk modeling to buttress the Intervoice’s platform while minimizing exploitative opportunities for today’s telephone criminal.

Some industry analysts estimate that over 10 million people were victims of identity theft in 2004. That’s ten million people with a lower level of customer trust and loyalty. When interacting with entities such as banks, insurance providers and the government, a person’s identity is essentially personal information which resides in hundreds or even thousands of places both online and offline.

While most companies are focused on protecting data networks and the Internet, the telephone remains vulnerable. Nefarious criminals gravitate towards the telephone because it is inherently faceless, hard to trace, inexpensive, and they know that companies are relying on information alone for identity verification.

It is much easier – but not nearly as thrilling, this reporter guesses – to answer a few security questions over the faceless telephone than to hack through a series of firewalls and encryption systems. When an account is created or accessed, fraud and identity theft is at the highest point of risk.

A recent report from Datamonitor expects voice authentication to accelerate between 2003 and 2007 at a CAGR of nearly 110%. “As an added layer of defense, voice authentication’s high degree of accuracy and simplicity of use make it an excellent choice to add to existing security provisions,” says Peter Ryan, CRM Analyst, Datamonitor.

Vocent’s packaged applications integrate with the Intervoice Omvia platform and InVision Studio development platform. The combined solution secures the telephone by verifying caller identities before information is accessed or transactions are completed. Multiple factors are used to ensure tight security while boosting caller convenience, including voice biometric results, content knowledge, presence information, past behavior and profile data.

“Today’s call center environment is a breeding ground” – Gotham City, a veritable swamp! – “for criminals, whereby new security measures must be taken for customer identity verification,” said Bob Ritchey, President and CEO of Intervoice. Holy handsets, send out the Bat-signal!

“To fight fraud and identity theft, call centers must move beyond simple security questions when verifying caller identities,” said Jeff Scheel, President & CEO of Vocent.

Beware, evildoers everywhere!

David Sims is contributing editor and CRM Alert columnist for TMCnet.