New Zealand government agencies Inland Revenue and Work and Income have adopted biometric voice identification as a means of verifying people when they call into the agencies.
As reported in the Waikato Times, the callers can let the system record and recognize their voices so they don’t have to go through an identification verification process every time they call into the agency.
Inland Revenue implemented the system four weeks ago, with 10,000 enrollees so far. It hopes to increase that number to 800,000 people within a year.
Work and Income introduced the system in July and has registered 15,000 people so far, with only three percent declining to be in the system. Since implementation, the system has successfully completed 50,000 identity checks.
One challenge of the system is that the poor sound quality of mobile phones make it difficult to rely on the verifications made from them, which is about 38 percent of calls to Work and Income’s contract center. Mobile phone companies are looking into upgrades to improve sound quality of mobile calls.
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