Android ‘face unlock’: could do better
Posted on November 17, 2011 by Nik Stanbridge
The Android ‘face unlock’ feature of the new Ice-Cream Sandwich OS isn’t going to do the biometrics industry any favours. I don’t think it’s being presented as a serious biometric identity verification solution to the securing of the device, but that’s not how it will be perceived and discussed. And that’s what’s important.
While it’s not being touted as a security feature, it is accessed from the Security menu on the device. It isn’t touted as a ‘biometric’ but you do have to ‘enroll’ by pointing the camera at your face so that it knows who to verify as being you and then hopefully let in (to the exclusion of anyone else).
But the enrollment model of your face, the biometric, is very weak, being based on only one scan of your face – and that’s the root of the problem. It does make it very fast, but also very inaccurate – as has been discovered and blogged about. So all that’s been talked about is how inaccurate it is, and that it can be spoofed with a simple picture of you that anyone can obtain.
So not secure at all. And that’s the takeaway – here’s yet another biometric solution that doesn’t work. So yet another case where we have to explain that this isn’t how it’s done… it’s just a fun gimmick.
Come and talk to us here at VoiceVault about voice biometric solutions. We’ll show you how it’s done.
Mobile wallets need voice biometrics
Posted on September 26, 2011 by Nik Stanbridge
The Google Wallet is a fantastic initiative and a way overdue one. And I support it wholeheartedly. What is very disappointing though is the relatively cavalier attitude it has towards security.
PINs aren’t secure and I’ve written about this before. PINs (and passwords) – stuff you have to remember – stuff that can be phished from you or copied from that Post-It on your desk. They’re very old hat now and in serious need of replacement.
Maybe I’m seeing this too much from a European perspective where we’ve had Chip & PIN for what seems like decades now (each of your cards has an associated PIN stored on a chip on the card and at the PoS you have to provide the PIN and it must match what’s on the chip on the card). While I’m not saying this is a panacea either, it’s better than a wallet-level PIN.
As well as the weakness of the PIN, you don’t need card information on the phone at all. Card issuing companies know your card details and they know in-depth information about the human being to whom they have issued those cards. There’s no reason to hold your card details on your phone, or pass them (however encrypted) to the retailer or web site, or generally expose them whatsoever. All that is needed is a strong statement of identity (and that can even be strong anonymous identity) in order to allow a retailer to charge something to YOUR visa card
I’m going to be charitable and assume that the Wallet PIN is a temporary ‘security’ measure and one that Google is desperate to replace / enhance. That replacement needs to be based on biometrics – and voice biometrics are a naturally ally to the smartphone way of doing things.
We have an Android mobile wallet demo that shows just how easily voice biometrics slips into an mWallet user experience. It’s a natural fit, is simple and intuitive and provides very high levels of security based on something you are, rather than something you have to remember. Watch our 34 second YouTube demo vid and see for yourself.
Give us 15 seconds of your speech – and we’ll enroll you
Posted on September 1, 2011 by Nik Stanbridge
How long do you think it takes to enroll your voice using our technology? How much speech do you think you’ll need to say?
Try this… Time yourself saying the following… “0579 9075 5709 0957″. How long did that take? However long it took, and it probably took less than 15 seconds, that’s how much speech our voice biometric enrollment process needs. Period.
And remember, you only have to enroll once.
What about verification? Try saying “9570″. That’s it, you’ve just provided enough speech to verify your identity.
All the speech we need you to say is fully prompted for. So, if we want you to say “9570″ we’ll prompt you for it (with something like “Please say 9570″) – keeps it nice and simple.
We can work wonders with these very small amounts of speech (very high levels of accuracy) while keeping the user experience short and sweet.
Click here to have a go and experience it for yourself. You can even use one of our smartphone apps.
