Raphael Satter of AP reports:
The caller said her home had burned down and her husband had been badly hurt in the blaze. On the telephone with her bank, she pleaded for a replacement credit card at her new address.
“We lost everything,” she said. “Can you send me a card to where we’re staying now?”
The card nearly was sent. But as the woman poured out her story, a computer compared the biometric features of her voice against a database of suspected fraudsters. Not only was the caller not the person she claimed to be, “she” wasn’t even a woman. The program identified the caller as a male impostor trying to steal the woman’s identity.
The conversation, a partial transcript of which was provided to The Associated Press by the anti-fraud company Verint Systems, reflects the growing use of voice biometric technology to screen calls for signs of fraud.
Read more on Daily Finance. Satter does address the question I immediately had: how are they collecting voice samples without customers knowing about it? Or are we being warned our voice samples are being collected and stored – and used?
I’m all for fighting fraud and ID theft, but then banks should be very upfront about this. Why not ask us, “We can help protect your account better if we register your voice in our system. Would you like us to do that?”
Notice and consent. A novel concept?