AI Fools Voice Recognition Used To Verify Identity By Australian Tax Office (theguardian.com) 14
A voiceprint program used by millions of Australians to access data held by government agencies can be fooled by an AI-generated voice, reports the Guardian. From the report: Centrelink and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) both give people the option of using a "voiceprint", along with other information, to verify their identity over the phone, allowing them to then access sensitive information from their accounts. Using just four minutes of audio, a Guardian Australia journalist was able to generate a clone of their own voice and was then able to use this, combined with their customer reference number, to gain access to their own Centrelink self-service account.
Anyone trying to use voiceprint also needs to know the account-holder's customer reference number, which is not normally publicly available, but the number is not treated as securely as a password and is included in correspondence from Centrelink and other service providers, such as childcare centers. The self-service phone system allows people to access sensitive material such as information on their payment of benefits and to request documents to be sent by mail, including replacement concession or healthcare cards. Services Australia declined to say if the voiceprint technology would be changed or removed from Centrelink.
Anyone trying to use voiceprint also needs to know the account-holder's customer reference number, which is not normally publicly available, but the number is not treated as securely as a password and is included in correspondence from Centrelink and other service providers, such as childcare centers. The self-service phone system allows people to access sensitive material such as information on their payment of benefits and to request documents to be sent by mail, including replacement concession or healthcare cards. Services Australia declined to say if the voiceprint technology would be changed or removed from Centrelink.
My voice is my passport, verify me (Score:4, Insightful)
My voice is my passport, verify me
Re: (Score:2)
Get back in your monkey cage, Werner.
Re:My voice is my passport, verify me (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, who knew that something like this could happen?
In the Star Trek:TNG episode Brothers [imdb.com], Data mimics Picard's voice to issue voice commands and take control of the Enterprise. Thirty years later the real-world technology has caught up with the sci-fi.
Re: (Score:2)
There was one based on Star Trek DS9 called "Star Trek DS9 Voice Print" that did voice recognition to authenticate you on your computer. I remember seeing it around, but I never could get a copy of it, and details these days on it are sketchy.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.co... [fandom.com]
I can't image it being very sophisticated by today's standards through it was apparently fairly good since it was using a respected voice recognition engine.
So who can't ... (Score:2)
Wonderland (Score:3)
It's the government (Score:2)
Governments are usually years behind in the adoption of new technology because it costs money and there's always something more politically sexy to spend the money on
Have and know (Score:2)
That's basically it - authentication should rely on both having something and knowing something. Relying on a single factor for something as important as taxes is criminally stupid; and the fact that being able to effectively spoof a voiceprint is absolutely no excuse for such lax and lazy 'protection' of critical data and processes.
Re: (Score:3)
It's also bad because lots of things can cause ones voice to change drastically. Got a sore throat? Sorry, you can't do your taxes.
FWIW, I've got lots of mild allergies, so my voice changes in various different ways from day to day. I even have trouble with voice recognition systems that are supposed to recognize everyone.
I see (Score:3)
"G'day mate, what's the good word? You're not here to give me a hard time about me bloody taxes, are ya? Fair dinkum, I've been doing me best to keep up with it all, but it's a bit of a dingo's breakfast if you know what I mean. Anyway, let's grab a cold one and have a chinwag about it, eh?"