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Many of the current security procedures in place by banks are good, but they're not foolproof - anyone could theoretically access your account if they had your debit card, password and so on.

But mimicking someone's voice is much more difficult, and it's for that reason many banks are now turning in that direction to provide added security.

Known as voice biometrics, the technology means that only your voice can access your bank on the phone - and it's something that could soon make its way to the general public.

An investigation found that banks are quietly rolling out voiceprinting. The biggest roll-out is in Turkey, while the US and UK are following suit. In this photo Benoit Fauve, a speech scientist with a voice recognition technology company ValidSoft, points to a screen displaying the voice biometric features of a telephone call

In an investigation by Raphael Satter for the Associated Press, it was revealed that businesses and even governments are increasingly turning to voiceprints.

This is apparently being used by some when people pay pensions, collect taxes, track criminals, replace passwords and more.

But the technology is not being well-communicated to customers, with the roll-out seemingly taking place behind closed doors.

Vendors say the timbre of a person's voice is unique in a way similar to the patterns at the tips of someone's fingers.

Voiceprint technology measures the characteristics of a person's speech.

Typical speaker recognition software compares those characteristics with data held on a server. If two voiceprints are similar enough, the system declares them a match.

'There's a misconception that the technology we have today is only in the domain of the intelligence services, or the domain of "Star Trek,"' said Paul Burmester, of London-based ValidSoft, a voice biometric vendor.

'The technology is here today, well-proven and commonly available.'

Dan Miller, an analyst with Opus Research in San Francisco, estimates that the industry's revenue will roughly double from just under £250 million ($400 million) last year to up to £560 million ($900 million) next year.

Barclays PLC recently experimented with voiceprinting as an identification for its wealthiest clients. It was so successful that Barclays is rolling it out to the rest of its 12 million retail banking customers.

'The general feeling is that voice biometrics will be the de facto standard in the next two or three years,' said Iain Hanlon, a Barclays executive.

An Associated Press investigation has found that two of America's biggest retail banks, Chase and Wells Fargo, are quietly taking some callers' voiceprints to fight fraud. Vendors say the timbre of a person's voice is unique in a way similar to the patterns at the tips of someone's fingers

The Vanguard Group Inc, a Pennsylvania-based mutual fund manager, is among the technology's many financial users. Tens of thousands of customers log in to their accounts by speaking the phrase: 'At Vanguard, my voice is my password' into the phone.

'We've done a lot of testing, and looked at siblings, even twins,' said executive John Buhl, whose voice was a bit hoarse during a telephone interview. 'Even people with colds, like I have today, we looked at that.'

The single largest implementation identified by the AP is in Turkey, where mobile phone company Turkcell has taken the voice biometric data of some 10 million customers using technology provided by market leader Nuance Communications Inc.

However many others are rolling out their own versions.

Some speech recognition technology is already noticeable in modern society, such as Apple's Siri (stock image shown). However, speech recognition may become more ubiquitous as banks and companies prefer it to other mans of identification like a password

In the US, law enforcement officials use the technology to monitor inmates and track offenders who have been paroled.

In New Zealand, the Internal Revenue Department celebrated its 1 millionth voiceprint, leading the revenue minister to boast that his country had 'the highest level of voice biometric enrollments per capita in the world.'

In South Africa, roughly 7 million voiceprints have been collected by the country's Social Security Agency, in part to verify that those claiming pensions are still alive.

Some activists worry that the popularity of voiceprinting has a downside, though.

'It's more mass surveillance,' said Sadhbh McCarthy, an Irish privacy researcher. 'The next thing you know, that will be given to border guards, and you'll need to speak into a microphone when you get back from vacation.'

However it seems that for now voiceprinting will become ever more ubiquitous in the coming years.