UK Telecom Launches Customer Voice Recognition with Nuance Tech

UK telecom TalkTalk has enabled voice authentication for its four million customers, the company has announced. With a new feature called TalkSafe, customers who choose to opt-in will be able to set up a voiceprint by repeating an assigned phrase three times, after which that phrase can be used for authentication whenever they call the company.

The technology has been provided by Nuance Communications, a voice biometrics specialist whose technology has wound up in smart car systems and smartwatches. The company appears to increasingly be working on these kinds of institutional deployments, however, and recently partnered with UK bank HSBC to roll out a biometric authentication systems for its customers in the coming months.

Meanwhile, TalkTalk gets to boast about being the first telecommunications provider in the UK to embrace such technology as a standard security feature. Commenting on the development in a statement, TalkTalk Consumer Managing Director Tristia Harrison framed it as part of a broader effort at improving the customer experience. “TalkSafe is an important and exciting step on that journey,” she said, adding that the company is “proud to be leading the way in making this advanced technology accessible to millions of homes across the country at no extra cost.”