Credit Card Debt Management

I just read a story that was fascinating and troubling at the same time.
Voiceprint – anybody heard of it?

Discovery Channel News reports that a British company is in talks with 52 banks worldwide to allow voice-activated payment in lieu of swiping a credit card. At first blush, this sounds intriguing. It is highly technical, apparently loads better than the somewhat unreliable voice-activated dialing or voice-activated phone tree commands.

Voiceprint requires users to create an account by repeating random numbers, which the company records by phone. The company claims that the recording session during setup is so intricate that a person’s voice cannot possibly be mimicked even by the best impersonator. Thus, this new technology is expected to cut down on identity theft.

Awesome, right? Apparently, 200,000 pre-subscribers think so.
They’re all waiting for the technology to hit the banks.

But, wait just a nanosecond there – what happens if I’m hoarse, depressed, or my voice sounds drastically different for any reason? What happens if I lose my voice?

And who’s to say identity thieves can’t just call Voiceprint and set up their own accounts, fraudulently using the information of others? If this is possible, how much more difficult will it be for identity theft victims to put their affairs back in order (a process that can already take up to three years) when they can’t even deactivate their own fraudulent Voiceprint account?

My biggest concern is the growing control that highly-touted computers are exerting over daily human life, because we all know technology will fail from time to time. This new technology has a huge potential to be much more of an inconvenience than a convenience.

Consider this paragraph from the news article:
“Authentication happens at the time of purchase … If it matches, the credit card can be billed. But if it doesn’t match, no purchase is made.”

Does anyone remember HAL?