Case study: Irish Farmers’ Association - using voice verification applications

The decision of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) to implement voice verification applications to secure its Buywayz mobile phone-based stock procurement system was based on the technology’s convenience and ease-of-use.

The organisation employs 60 staff at its headquarters in Dublin and its office in Brussels, catering for the needs of its 85,000 members. It has about 1,000 branches throughout Ireland, while 3,000 voluntary officers also contribute to the running of the organisation.

In 2001, the IFA resolved to create a mobile commerce service to make the purchase of essential goods and services, such as oil, telecommunications, animal health and crop protection products, cheaper and quicker for members.

Pat Smith, director of the Buywayz project at the IFA, says farmers are experiencing increasing costs and downward pressure on pricing.

‘The traditional way of doing business is for salespeople to visit farms, but that is not very efficient. It means lots of paperwork and enormous amounts of time spent researching prices,’ he says. ‘We wanted a way to take unnecessary cost out of the farmer-merchant relationship.’

The system, which took about a year to plan and deploy, is based on procurement applications from IMS Maxims and Biometric Security’s VoiceVault voice verification system.

Mobile phones were chosen as the main access device because 85 per cent of farmers have one, while very few use PCs to surf the internet.

To activate the Buywayz system, members initially register their measurable voiceprint characteristics, along with other relevant data such as bank account details.

Text messages containing information about offers based on farmers’ purchasing profiles are then sent to registered mobile phones. For example, sheep farmers might be sent information about sheep dip prior to the season.

Members call the Buywayz system, which verifies identity by asking for a PIN, both in its original sequence and in reverse.

Once their identity is confirmed, callers are requested to enter the item code and desired quantity on the mobile phone keypad.

After this transaction is complete the order is stored in a secure server, with the member’s voiceprint attached to act as a digital signature.

The system sends the order to the supplier before contacting the farmer’s bank to authorise an immediate debit. A text message providing delivery details is then sent to the member.

Smith says there are some security problems with such a system, especially if money is being taken out of bank accounts.

‘Voice seemed the most practical mechanism at the time because it is convenient and easy to use,’ he says. ‘As a result, it has helped to streamline a procurement process that used to take hours or days into one that now takes seconds.’

Even so, take-up has been slow, with only a couple of thousand mainly younger members using the service.

‘Part of the challenge with any new technology is getting people to change from their traditional way of doing business,’ says Smith.

‘It is important that the system is as user-friendly as possible. If you set the security levels too high and people have to spend half an hour getting in, they won’t use it again.’

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