Voice biometrics are becoming increasingly useful to various companies and organizations requiring secure identity verification via the phone, such as in bank call centers, but the technology is also proving useful in other applications too, according to a TMCnet article.

The reason for its capabilities in other areas is due to a general need for a biometric-like technology with something impeding the use of traditional and affordable biometric modes like fingerprint recognition.

Specifically, in areas such as mining where a biometric system may be used for physical access control, a miner’s fingers may become too dirty to be properly authenticated by a fingerprint system, but his voice would still be perfectly readable.

Similar reasoning in other industries has seen voice technology also picked up in places where logical access control, Web site security and kiosk functions requires a secure and affordable system.

Read the full story here.