July 19, 2007 — Just as each person has a unique fingerprint, so too does everyone have a unique voice print.
Now a company wants to use a person's voiceprint as way to secure credit card payments. So instead of giving out their card number, shoppers will use their voice. The developers claim that their technology could help reduce identify theft and allow account holders to shop by mobile phone, even when they're nowhere near an Internet connection.
"It's a way of making payments for anything, anywhere with complete security and no concern. As long as they have a telephone they can do a transaction with Voice Pay," said Nick Ogden, founder and CEO of Voice Pay, which launched 18 months ago and is based in Jersey in the U.K.'s Channel Islands.
At the heart of Voice Pay is a speech authentication algorithm developed by Dublin-based Voice Vault. On the surface, the system may seem a little like those voice dialing systems that exist on mobile phones. Say, "call Mary" and the phone automatically dials Mary's number.
But this technology is more sophisticated. It analyzes 117 voice parameters that are wholly unique to an individual's vocal chords and the shape of the inside of the mouth and nasal cavity. Even a voice impersonator, who might sound like the user, cannot mimic certain subtleties naturally present in a person's voice, said Ogden.
To use the voice payment system, a user has to first set up an account with Voice Pay. To do so, they call the company from a cell phone, choose a username and password, and provide credit card information. Next, the shopper provides a voiceprint by repeating a series of randomly generated numbers.
Authentication happens at the time of purchase. For example, a website could have a Voice Pay icon that the shopper would click to make a purchase. The click would launch the Voice Pay site, which, once the shopper had logged in, would call the customer's cell phone.
