Stephen Withers
Monday, 19 May 2008 12:04
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
When you ask the public a question, it can be hard to tell whether the aggregated answers represent the wisdom of the crowd or mass ignorance.
The trigger for my train of thought was the release of some market research results by speech recognition specialist Nuance.
Just so we're clear, I'm not addressing issues about the methodology (the survey was performed by Harris Interactive, and I have no reason to question that company's professionalism), nor the accuracy and reliability of Nuance's software for voice verification - essentially the use of a voice print as a biometric identifier.
But what weight can we put on uninformed opinion?
Nearly half of the respondents said they don't feel secure that they are the only person who could access their account. No problem there - I'd be one of them.
We all know how little personal information is needed to convince agents that you are who you claim to be. In most cases, name, address and one other piece of information drawn from a pool of perhaps three items is sufficient. Almost any male agent that I've dealt with would stand a good chance of successfully impersonating me.
When the survey suggests that only one third want better protection for their personal information when they call customer service departments, the biggest surprise is that the other one sixth who think others could access their account didn't put their hands up too.
So what's the problem?
CONTINUED
