Technology and Innovation: How your voice has become your new password

Voice biometrics (sometimes called voice authentication) is quickly replacing PINs, passwords and multiple identification questions. This technology has also been touted to provide a higher level of security. It involves the use of voice, relying on the fact that vocal characteristics, just like fingerprints and people’s irises (eyes), are unique to an individual.

An increase in identity theft together with the desire by organisations to secure client data proactively has seen a surge in the use of voice biometrics. Hence the reason why companies like Safaricom have quickly embraced voice authentication technology in order to provide customers with an extra layer of security for sensitive information.

 Safaricom’s voice biometric facility is dubbed ‘Jitambulishe’ and it uniquely allows customers to use their voices for authentication before accessing assisted services such as resetting M-PESA PIN, and PUK. Besides enhancing security, it cuts down the steps that a customer goes through before they are assisted by the customer care service.

To activate the service, a customer’s voice patterns are captured and utilised in the creation of a unique “voiceprint”, that is stored as a secure string of numbers and characters. These attributes help identify and verify callers whenever they place a call to the customer care desk.

 This system has enabled transcription of what a person says and how they said it by replicating the position a mouth makes when speaking a certain speech pattern.

How ‘Jitambulishe’ works

The service functions by retrieving aspects of a person’s speech.

One is ‘What you are saying’, which is retrieved using automatic speech recognition technology.

The other is ‘How you speak’, which involves language, accent and speaking style. This is the information used by linguists and phoneticians to identify a speaker, their culture and mood.

A third aspect, which is the most important information from a person’s voice is through the vocal tract: that is, the shape of a person’s larynx, mouth and nose. This information is unique and particular to an individual. It cannot be changed or disguised and it is not dependent on language. This is the fundamental basis on which voice biometrics works.

On enrollment into the system, a person’s voice is recorded which creates a voiceprint for comparison with samples taken for user identification.

To enhance the security of stored samples, the user may be asked to repeat pre-recorded voiceprints randomly. This is what the system uses to proof a request for entry.

More on the technology

The use of voice ID has also seen the rise of the voice assistant, with Amazon’s ubiquitous voice assistant, Alexa, taking top honors. So ingrained in the E-commerce world is Alexa that JP Morgan Chase bank uses it for trades.

Other areas that voice ID can be used include, Wire Transfer, Government Immigrant Check-in, Customer Service Authentication and Employee Workforce Management Check-in.

Critics however are keen to point out that voice biometrics is not fool proof. Citing examples such as lack of accuracy or partial capture of data and binding which oft leads to system failure and which is irreversible.