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What's the article about?
- It talks about adopting voice technology (VT) as an identification tool in the financial system to combat cybercrime.
Relevance:
- GS3: Science and Technology- Developments and their Applications and Effects in Everyday Life;
- GS3: Basics of Cyber Security; Money-Laundering and its prevention;
- Prelims
Context:
- Bank and cyber frauds in India are on the rise.
- According to data by the RBI, frauds have cost the country an estimated ₹100 crore a day over the last seven years.
- The frauds reported in 2021-22 were 23.69% higher than in the previous year (9,103 cases reported compared to 7,359 in 2020-21)
- The main reasons for the rise in fraud include greater use of digital payments, telephone banking, and online banking services.
- One way to reduce losses is by adopting Voice Technology (VT), which encompasses voice biometrics or voice/speech recognition technology.
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Basics of user-identification/recognition technologies:
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Advantages/features of Voice Technology (VT):
- Voice authentication can significantly improve security over knowledge-based authentication methods.
- Compared to other biometrics, voice use is the cheapest technology, and does not require a reader or special device.
- It is also non-invasive, portable and affords remote identification. A
- Unlike a password, a customer’s voice is impossible to spoof or copy, and is far more challenging to hack.
- VT verifies a caller swiftly in seconds by analysing the caller’s voice and flags suspicious calls.
- VT allows privacy because it does not require users to reveal personal information.
- The voice biometrics industry is growing exponentially now. Experts expect the market to reach a market size of $3.9 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 22.8%.
- Voice could be an excellent tool for the Government to disburse money for various schemes and verify the proof of life of pensioners from their homes.
- In February 2019, HSBC became the first bank to take the revolutionary leap in introducing voice recognition for mobile banking customers — telephone banking fraud cases fell by over 50%.
Way Forward:
- Voice biometrics tech is making waves in the world of fraud protection by providing an extra layer of protection for data.
- Although the technology is not yet perfect, the potential benefits are significant. Once it is in place, user establishments can reap the benefits from a substantial reduction in fraud, making the technology an essential feature in the security toolkit of the future.
