Atio has partnered with voice biometric authentication service provider OneVault to offer voice biometric solutions to its customers.
According to Atio’s CEO, Chris Van der Sande: “ATIO has been focused on introducing innovative solutions into our overall solution offering and we believe that voice biometrics has a significant role to play in this strategy.”
With the increased focus on automation and servicing customers remotely, authentication is a critical factor for any organisation transacting in this fashion. As imposters and fraudsters get more and more sophisticated, authentication methodologies need to evolve accordingly. At present, traditional authentication generally takes the form of Knowledge Based Authentication (KBA) which invariably means asking more questions to confirm identity and keeps the customer on the telephone for a much longer period before their queries get answered. Customer satisfaction is declining in direct correlation with the increased emphasis for organisations to reduce risk.
“Voice biometrics is becoming a mainstream technology and we are delighted that Atio has seen the value in incorporating into their solution offering for their clients. The demand here in South Africa is growing exponentially and, as a specialist voice biometric provider, OneVault is able to provide significant insight in this regard,” says Paul Hutton, CEO of OneVault.
Whether static or behavioral or electromagnetic, biometrics cannot be claimed to be an alternative to passwords UNTIL it stops relying on a password for self-rescue against the false rejection altogether while retaining the near-zero false acceptance in the real outdoor environment. A dog which depends on a man cannot be an alternative to the man.
Biometrics can theoretically be operated together with passwords in two ways, (1) by
AND/conjunction or (2) by OR/disjunction. I would appreciate to hear if someone knows of a biometric product operated by (1). The users of such products must have been notified that, when falsely rejected by the biometric sensor with the devices finally locked, they would have to see the device reset. It is the same with the
biometrics operated without passwords altogether.
Biometric products like Apple’s Touch ID are generally operated by (2) so that users can unlock the devices by passwords when falsely rejected by the biometric sensors. This means that the overall vulnerability of the product is the sum of the vulnerability of biometrics (x) and that of a password (y). The sum (x + y – xy) is necessarily larger than the vulnerability of a password (y), say, the devices with Touch ID and other biometric sensors are less secure than the devices protected only by a password.
It is very worrying to see so many ICT people and media being indifferent to the difference between AND/conjunction and OR/disjunction when talking about “using two factors together”.