Jitambulishe Review: Setting Up and Using Safaricom’s Vocal Password Service

Voice biometrics is not something new. Though it does feel like something that is a lot more futuristic than present reality. Just in case you are not familiar with it, biometrics is the measurement and statistical analysis of people’s unique physical and behavioral characteristics. This includes voice recognition, fingerprint, iris scanning and facial recognition. Yes, all the cool stuff.

I did not know this but it turns out that voice recognition is the most robust option when it comes to biometrics. A voiceprint is harder to spoof because it contains a combination of components like a person’s accent and inflection. Basically, it’s really difficult for someone to fake your voice.

Why use voice biometrics?

Well, it’s getting harder to remember a million passwords for all the platforms and devices we’re on and easier for hackers to access our information. Honestly, I struggle to remember passwords and when I found out that Safaricom launched Jitambulishe, a voice biometrics service, I was thrilled.

Jitambulishe allows you to create a vocal password for easier access to services such as resetting your M-PESA PIN and PUK requests. This means that you don’t have to remember your password and it takes a shorter time to get assistance as the vocal password cuts out most of the steps. Since our voices are unique, this means a reduction in fraud and identity theft.

How do you set up Jitambulishe?

The set-up is really easy:

1. Dial 100 if you’re a prepay customer and 200 if you’re on postpaid.
2. Follow instructions to choose your language preference and to begin the Jitambulishe set-up.
3. Enter your ID number followed by #
4. Create your vocal password.

Creating your password is easy and needs you to repeat a statement 3 times after a tone: ”At Safaricom, my voice is my password.” It was painless and doing it 3 times made me feel more confident that they got it. The first time my voice was a little shaky.

There’s an option to update your vocal password by re-recording your voice as well as one to delete it if you for whatever reason ever want to revert to a non voice password.

Does Jitambulishe work?

Okay, so I wanted to give it a go and called 100 again to enquire about registering a new line. After the usual instructions on language preference and specifying my query, I was asked to enter my vocal password. This was again speaking the phrase, “At Safaricom, my voice is my password.” I was then patched through to a customer care rep and they were already aware who they were speaking to. My unique voiceprint means that when I call, my identity has already been verified and they don’t need to do too much follow-up to verify that it is indeed me before assisting me especially when it comes to sensitive information.

This is a step in the right direction and I’m glad to see more Kenyan companies using technology to make things more convenient and safer for their customers. Safaricom also introduced an M-PESA Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solution for their visually impaired customers in December and hopefully all these new products are just a tip of the iceberg in the innovation that is possible with new technology.