One two three four… Voice authentication down under

One two three four…  Voice authentication down under

In Australia this year CENTRELINK will be deploying a voice authentication system. This shall be used for management and identification of clients. Centrelink is one of the first Australian organizations to implement voice recognition as an online service, having allowed users to log reports vocally starting back in 2002. “The past two years we’ve been playing with voice authentication” said chief information officer John Wadeson, but only within the past six months did it become, “ready for serious use.” After testing with 10 users the system is now ready to, “be rolled out across the business when we need to.” At this point there will be an expanded test phase, and within a short time the system will be fully deployed. To use the system callers are requested to authenticate their identity by answering a number of “secret questions” and counting to 10, Once the system verifies the user’s voice, it is their password.

“It is a bit of a process to record [enroll] your voice so that the authentication software recognizes it. But once you’ve done it, it’s done for good”, Mr Wadeson said. “From that point there will be one or two pre-recorded secret questions for a user to answer and then they will have access to the system and their account.” Supposedly this new system will be a more secure system of user identification than the existing PIN based access that is in place. Relying on the fact that voice prints, like fingerprints, are unique for each individual. What we should all be worried about is that people are forgetting that audio recorders are ubiquitous devices. Every person that has a cell phone has one in their pockets at most times. With this sort of limited enrollment dictionary one thing to consider is the difficulty in bypassing such a system by covert recording the challenge/response sequence… ohh and count to 10!

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