South American Healthcare Provider’s Chatbot Authenticates Customers Using ID R&D Voice Biometrics

“The deployment at BlueCross and BlueShield de Uruguay is a great example of voice biometrics being an optimal solution to an authentication challenge.” – Alexey Khitrov, CEO & Co-founder, ID R&D

A South American medical services company is leveraging AI and voice recognition in an innovative new approach to customer service, with ID R&D‘s biometric technology playing a key role.

BlueCross & BlueShield de Uruguay has launched a new chatbot service that can authenticate individuals as they speak. Developed by Simpletech, the WhatsApp Business Platform chatbot allows customers to book medical appointments through voice commands, simply by conversationally interacting with the AI system.

As they do so, customers’ voices are identified using ID R&D’s biometric technology, an entirely passive authentication process that is highly reliable. All that’s required is an initial voice enrolment during a given customer’s first session with the ‘Wittybots’ chatbot; after that, biometric authentication is performed automatically during every subsequent call.

“Users can access their personal data just by speaking a short phrase to the bot, removing friction and simplifying an otherwise complicated authentication process,” explained ID R&D CEO and co-founder Alexey Khitrov. “The deployment at BlueCross and BlueShield de Uruguay is a great example of voice biometrics being an optimal solution to an authentication challenge.”

The system’s advantages over traditional authentication mechanisms like onerous security questions and vulnerable PIN codes are clear. But in announcing the solution, ID R&D also asserted that it’s more reliably secure than newer modalities like selfie-based authentication because the authentication process is conducted in real time during a call.

ID R&D’s liveness detection technology – which also extends to the other key component of its biometric portfolio, facial recognition – was cited as a key factor motivating Mitek’s acquisition of the company last year.

For BlueCross & BlueShield de Uruguay, CTO Roberto Sarni explained that the solution “achieves the goal of innovating in the quest for improving customer experiences in healthcare coordination processes, while maximizing security requirements.”

Going forward, ID R&D and Simpletech are looking to attract further customers for their joint solution, which they will be showcasing at next week’s FEBRABAN TECH event in São Paulo, Brazil, which runs from August 9 to 11.

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Aug. 5, 2022 – by Alex Perala