Now pay your credit card bills the secure way with your voiceprint!

A British company claims to have developed a technology that uses a person's voiceprint as a way to secure credit card payments.Each person has a unique voiceprint, and the company believes the same, rather than the credit card number, can be used while shopping and making payments.Its inventors say the technology could help reduce identity theft and allow account holders to shop by mobile phone, even when they`re nowhere near an Internet connection.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, he said.To use the voice payment system, a user has to first set up an account with Voice Pay, which can be done by calling the company from a cell phone and choosing a username and password, besides providing details of the credit card.Next, the shopper provides a voiceprint by repeating a series of randomly generated numbers. Authentication would take place at the time of purchase.A website having a Voice Pay icon will launch the site, which once the shopper had logged in, would call the customer's cell phone. A computerized attendant would then ask the shopper to repeat numbers and then compare the person`s speech to the voiceprint saved. If it matches, the credit card will be billed. But if it doesn`t match, no purchase will be registered.According to CEO of Voice Pay, a person could also potentially buy items over the phone, without the Internet.Retail items in a store or in a catalog would have a Voice Pay product number as well as a phone number listed that the customer could call. The shopper would enter the product number and go through the process of repeating numbers randomly generated by the computerized attendant.

Source: zeenews.comAdded: 8 August 2007