"What's your mother's maiden name?" Most people who've phoned the call centre of their bank, insurance company, medical aid or cellphone service provider will be familiar with that type of personal question, but as identity verification goes, it's a very outdated method. With voice biometrics, it's your voice - as unique as your fingerprint - that confirms to the company that you are indeed who you say you are, not what you say. One of the problems with "knowledge-based authentication" - asking callers a set of personal questions - is that it has a success rate of only about 65%, according to Paul Hutton, the CEO of leading voice biometric authentication company OneVault. "Clients are asked personal questions which they should know, but often they don't answer correctly," Hutton says. "Many don't know the limit on their credit cards, for example." But with voice authentication, the success rate is 95%, which is why leading financial services companies in the US and UK have adopted i...
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