“This call may be recorded or monitored for quality or security purposes.” That warning, or one very similar, is recognizable to anyone who’s dialed up a company help line.
Typically, a contact center stores its audio recordings. Subsequently they can be shared within the organization for auditing, personnel training, and quality management. But what protects sensitive customer information such as social security and credit card numbers?
"Call centers, and the agents who answer customer questions and address their concerns, play a vital role in reinforcing their organization's brand experience while maintaining customer trust. The ability to maintain customer trust requires organizations to be able to ensure the security of their customers' private information, such as credit card numbers, personal identification numbers (PIN), social security numbers and other information collected through agent-customer interactions," said Dr. Guruduth Banavar, Director, IBM India Research Laboratory. "Designed to transform data for better security and privacy, this technology, developed by IBM Research, helps to ensure effective measures to safeguard company brands and manage customer trust."
The technology is a speech analytics tool that automatically detects and masks private and sensitive information collected from audio recordings of conversations between call center agents and customers.
Learn more:
Made in IBM Labs: IBM Technology to Protect Customer Data in the Call Center Industry (press release)