The pace with which technology has reshaped our lives in the past 2 decades is unprecedented in history. The world has witnessed mammoth and tremendous changes with the advent of the internet, mobile phone and other technological tools used in medicine, navigation, etc. Technology has once again improved on itself by consigning to the dustbin of history the never-ending lists of passwords and Pins (which banks tell us we must never write down but which millions of us do).
No more scratching of heads trying to recall a “memorable place” or the “name of your first pet”. Instead, if we want to speak to our bank or make a payment, we will verify our identities simply by speaking, or by presenting our fingerprint to a sensor.
Barclays bank yesterday became Britain’s first bank to offer “voice recognition” access to customers using phone banking. To sign up, users will say several phrases over the phone, which the bank’s systems will analyze and store, with tone, pitch, cadence and gaps between words among the vocal attributes analyzed.
When that customer calls again, instead of going through a tedious series of security questions, they will be asked to say something which will be checked against their digital “voiceprint”
The new technology was promoted by Joanna Lumley, whose voice was analyzed as she recited the proverb “you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink”
HSBC, First Direct and others will offer a similar service later this year. Many banks are quickly adopting this technology not because of the associated problems of the passwords but because of the increase in bank fraud. According to Financial Fraud Action UK, online and phone banking fraud jumped 64 per cent and 92 per cent respectively in 2015.
The organization defines these crimes as “fraudsters gaining access to, and transfering funds from, an individual’s account”. It attributes the sudden rise to “a change in attack methods, with criminals using social engineering scams such as phishing, vishing (phishing over the phone) in combination with more sophisticated online attacks such as infecting computers with malicious software”.
The sheer volume and variety of passwords, Pins and other information required from customers during the security-checking processes means it has become difficult to distinguish between genuine bank personnel and increasingly plausible crooks.
Barclays’s action is far from one-off. Other banks are trialing similar or even more futuristic forms of biometric analysis, including vein pattern and pulse rhythm detection. Barclays has offered voice recognition on the phone to a limited number of customers since 2013. It will now offer it to all phone banking customers.
The bank also launched “finger vein” verification in 2014, using infrared light to store the shape of a user’s veins. It says this will be more widely used in future.
New bank Atom, focused on mobile banking, introduced the option of logging in using facial and vocal recognition instead of passwords for its customers when it launched in April this year. Halifax has trialed a wristband which can identify customers by their heartbeat rhythm. The wristband is worn by the user and communicates with an app on their phone.
Apple Pay, launched last year, allows users to store payment card details on their iPhones. Users have to hold their finger over the fingerprint sensor on the home button while holding it up to the contactless card machine to authorize transactions.
