DeepScore designs a mobile app for lenders and insurers to score customer trustworthiness

DeepScore, a Japan-based software company, announced at the Consumer Electronics Show that it has developed a voice and facial recognition app that can score how a user is trustworthy with a 10-question survey. 

The app enables loan lenders, insurance companies, and financial institutions to decide whether people are lying or not with their gestures and tone of voice at the moment of the answer to these questions. 

Explaining this with an example, the company says that everyone has a certain credit limit, but sometimes demands can be made well above the limit. Here, such risky sectors will be able to understand whether the other person is telling the truth or lying by using this application, the company claims. 

DeepScore states that when people try to lie, they show this with their gestures and voice tones, and that its AI determines those movements and tones. Scientists argue that such an app may not give correct results, since the scientific world has conducted various researches on this subject, but cannot reach a complete conclusion. Researchers also stated that facial expressions and tone of voice can vary from person to person and does not indicate honesty. In fact, the company declares that the accuracy rate of the app is around 70% with a 30% false negative rate. 

‘When you tell a lie, you feel stress, your eye/mouth moves and your voice will skew.’ DeepScore CEO Shirabe Ogino shared in a statement.

The questions asked by the app are common knowledge. For example, a person who wants to take out a loan is asked classical questions such as whether they have health insurance, how much their income is, what they will do with the loan they took. Since these questions have been asked by the relevant company before, the data received from the application actually works as a confirmation mechanism.

Another issue that the app opens up for discussion is about the users’ biometric data. Human rights advocates say that data that can be collected in just a few minutes of question-and-answer time can pose much bigger problems. No privacy policy is mentioned in DeepScore’s website or information provided about the app. In fact, company CEO Shirabe Ogino says that consumers with trust problems may consider working with a different institution.

The application in question is used in some places, although it is controversial. Insurance and credit organizations in some countries, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, identify their customers through this mobile app. However, no information was given about what these companies were and the results they obtained from the application. 

CEO Shirabe Ogino noted that DeepScore is not the final say for decision-making among lenders and insurers, but just a single part leading to the final verdict, saying ‘no algorithm is 100 percent.’