Giving Voice to Net Security
by Leander Kahney
3:00 a.m. 29.Jun.99.PDT
The Home Shopping Network next month will be able to automatically identify customers on the phone by their voices.
In the first large-scale deployment of its kind, HSN's speech-print service will allow frequent shoppers to dispense with passwords and personal identification numbers, the company said.
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Voice recognition is just the first step: HSN said it hopes to completely automate the ordering process by the end of the year.
Based on technology from Nuance Communications, the voiceprint system will ask callers for their phone numbers. Callers will then be passed on to human order-takers to complete the purchase.
"[Voice-recognition systems] are a lot more convenient for the customer and can save the company a lot of money," said Steve Ehrlich, Nuance's vice president of marketing.
Automated phone-ordering systems can cost 90 percent less than conventional, human-operated systems, according to Ehrlich, who said Charles Schwab will roll out a similar system later this year.
He said the technology handles a number of languages and copes well with regional accents and things like bad phone lines and stuffy noses.
In addition to convenience, the technology will help HSN build a detailed database of its customers, said Bill Meisel, editor and publisher of the Speech Recognition Update, a monthly newsletter.
Currently, a household is issued a single verification number by HSN.
The voiceprint technology will allow the company to identify and collect data on individual members in a household, Meisel said.
"These are the kind of subtle advantages that make fraud prevention almost a secondary consideration," he said.
However, Meisel said the voiceprint system will be more secure than using a verification number.
To crack the system would require a wiretap to obtain an accurate recording of someone's voice, Meisel said. It should not be possible to simply use a tape recorder.
"The process of taping a voice changes its acoustic characteristics," he said. "It wouldn't work with a tape recorder ... practically speaking, it's very difficult [to crack the system]."
Meisel said similar voice-recognition systems are in use in prisons, where calling rights are a form of prison commerce. |
