Better security and convenience: these are the two motivating factors behind the revolution happening in widespread online authentication methods. Passwords are on the fast track to becoming nothing more than a page in history books – associated with 90s rap metal, Y2K paranoia, baggy jeans and other embarrassments of the recent past – for the exact reason that they are neither secure or convenient. In order to make a password inconvenient to crack (notice I didn’t say impossible) a number of best practices must be observed so staggering in their complexity that even online bank account access doesn’t seem worth the effort.
Convenience is the name of the game with AGNITiO’s newly rebranded voiceprint biometric offerings that fly under the banner of Voice iD. The voice biometrics solutions provider behind the engines that power technology available from Oberthur and Fonetic announced today that it has overhauled its website and branding strategy to best reflect its position in the mobile identity world.
C. Maxine Most, principal of Acuity Market Intelligence and contributing editor at Mobile ID World expands on the true benefits of voice authentication: “By providing what is essentially effortless authentication, the iPhone 5S Touch ID opens the door for a range of biometric modalities that can be similarly deployed as natural fits for mobile devices.This is especially true of voice authentication, which is viewed as the ultimate in ‘do nothing’ biometric for mobile phones.”
Indeed, Touch ID is responsible for bringing alternate and ultra convenient authentication methods into the real mainstream thought, but voiceprint authentication goes a step further, reducing user friction to what is being referred to as “invisible” levels of authentication convenience. Voice iD can be used as an additional passive factor in industries that greatly benefit from increased levels fraud protection like healthcare and finance. It can even be layered on to mobile fingerprint biometrics, but as AGNITiO CEO Emilio Martinez points out, voiceprint has a head start on fingerprints when it comes to ease of deployment.
“Voice iD may be the easiest method, complementary to Touch ID, yet faster to deploy,” says Martinez. “The AGNITiO Voice iD software engine can be immediately added to any device, platform or application, which allows for rapid ecosystem adoption. Soon consumers in a variety of scenarios will identify themselves with their unique voiceprint, in any language, electronically or by phone in a variety of scenarios.”
In the end, the future that AGNITiO would like to paint for us is one in which authentication by voice is comprehensive. Speaking into smartphones, tablets and upcoming wearable technologies, as well as speaking to representatives at call centers, banks and clinics, will be enough to easily authenticate. It’s almost old-school in the ancient “speak the password and enter” only voiceprints are passive and don’t require phrases. In AGNITiO’s version of the future, authentication is actually easier than “open sesame.”
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