1. What is the mission and vision of Nuance?
Nuance’s mission is to facilitate fast, easy, secure access to the services that people depend upon. When a person contacts a company or government agency, they should be able to quickly verify themselves with minimal work on their part. They should also know that their identity is safe and that the company or agency that they’re engaging with is using the latest technology to detect and stop fraudsters. Nuance promotes an accessible, biometrics-based approach to authentication in which a person’s voice acts as a central, lifelong credential that frees them to use whichever device or channel they want. Where other biometric modalities like fingerprint sensors and face scanning require a person to have access to a particular device, voice biometrics can be enrolled and then authenticated against in any channel. Therefore, by adding voice biometrics to their digital identity, governments and enterprises can ensure that they are offering a secure, accessible to everyone, including vulnerable and less technology-savvy clients. A biometrics-based approach also enables organizations to stop digital identity fraud at the source—the actual fraudster—by detecting fraudsters no matter the device or identity they hide behind. And it helps law enforcement agencies identify and prosecute organized fraud groups to protect their citizens from identity theft and related crimes.
2. Why is trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets?
Both corporate and government entities need to trust that the person they’re interacting with is actually who they claim to be; likewise, people need a convenient, accessible way to prove their identity to governments and companies. A trusted digital identity, based on principles of accessibility and universality, is key to facilitating these interactions.
Furthermore, as people increasingly prioritize data privacy and security, governments and companies should embrace these principles in kind. By adopting strong, state-of-the-art authentication and fraud prevention technologies like voice biometrics, enterprises and government services can demonstrate to their clients that they share these values.
3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does your organization address challenges associated with this transformation?
Digital identity will enhance privacy protection by enabling new ways to share specific identity attributes without having to share an identity in its entirety. Digital identity will also increase accessibility to critical services: pairing a person’s digital identity with their biometrics will allow that person to receive services without requiring a security factor that they may not have access to, such as a smartphone or physical identity card.
Nuance enables secure, accessible digital identity that goes beyond the simple digitalization of government IDs by providing technology to append biometric voiceprints to identities, as well as behaviourprints and “conversationprints”.
4. What role does Canada have to play as a leader in this space?
Through DIACC, Canada is taking the lead in adopting a secure, accessible digital identity framework that will facilitate the interoperability of digital ID standards and approaches between provinces. Further, in establishing leadership in developing such a framework, Canada will play a key role in developing a digital identity that can be used outsides of its national borders. By adopting biometrics as part of its strong digital identity framework, Canada can demonstrate the importance of making digital identity fully accessible to everyone.
5. Why did your organization join the DIACC?
It’s time to transform national identities, but digitization is only one step: digital identity initiatives must aim to provide better services with fewer barriers even while proactively moving against abuse from fraudsters who have amassed the valuable personal information of millions of citizens over the past decade. Enriching digital identities with other data including biometric factors is critical to increasing access to services for more vulnerable populations and to fighting fraud more effectively.
Nuance has more than 20 years’ experience helping banks, telecommunication providers, insurance companies and governments deliver better services and fight back against ever-evolving fraud threats. We’re very excited to share our expertise and collaborate with other organizations to accelerate the adoption of secure, accessible digital identities across Canada and around the world.
6. What else should we know about your organization?
Nuance is a global leader in biometric authentication and fraud prevention, helping governments and enterprises deliver better services and fight back against ever-evolving fraud threats. Our Gatekeeper biometric security solution reduces friction and increases trust in every interaction across voice and digital channels while helping fraud teams prevent, detect, and investigate more fraud. Over 500 organizations have enrolled over 600 million biometric prints through our solutions, securing over 8 billion customer engagements and preventing more than $2 billion in fraud losses annually.