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Millions of Voiceprints Quietly Being Harvested

Posted by Soulskill on from the can-you-hear-me-now dept.

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from The Guardian: Businesses and governments around the world increasingly are turning to voice biometrics, or voiceprints, to pay pensions, collect taxes, track criminals and replace passwords. "We sometimes call it the invisible biometric," said Mike Goldgof, an executive at Madrid-based AGNITiO, one of about 10 leading companies in the field. Those companies have helped enter more than 65M voiceprints into corporate and government databases, according to Associated Press interviews with dozens of industry representatives and records requests in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. ... The single largest implementation identified by the AP is in Turkey, where the mobile phone company Turkcell has taken the voice biometric data of some 10 million customers using technology provided by market leader Nuance Communications Inc. But government agencies are catching up.

7 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Stephen Hawking look out. by dwywit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can see a rapid increase in the customer base of synthetic voice software

    --
    They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
  2. Are they collected by hot women by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    with 80s hairstyles? If yes, here's mine: My - voice - is - my - passport.

  3. Always use voices. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Donald Duck gets customer service satisfaction and no BS.

  4. US Customs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I recently returned home from an international trip. I don't travel outside the country very often, and this was my first encounter with the new kiosks that replace the old paper form asking where I went, why I went there, and what I brought home with me.

    I was also fairly sure that the reason the Customs agent asked me to look directly at him and state my full name was that he was collecting a voice sample for future use. I think this article confirms that either this is already happening, or will very soon.

    1. Re:US Customs by AHuxley · · Score: 4, Insightful

      re "Well, speaker recognition dates as far back as facial recognition does."
      It was big in the 1980's to find interesting people using different phones and very early cell phones in South America by the US mil/gov.
      The UK enjoyed using it "Spy-in-sky patrols over British cities in hunt for Taliban fighters" (3 August 2008)
      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
      "They are attempting to identify suspects using ‘voice prints’" ... "Traffic’ intercepted by the equipment on board is analysed and processed, probably at the GCHQ spy centre in Cheltenham, searching for voice matches"
      The only real change is the cost of collection, cost of sorting and ability to build on public, telco, private and mil databases been shared with the Five Eye nations and friends.
      Expect every arrival chatdown to be recored and indexed with your face, passport and the usual biometrics details.
      Expect every car rental, duty free, cafe airport chatdown to be recored and indexed with your face, passport and the usual biometrics details.
      Get you talking, keep you talking, its not just about the car rental use or been friendly to the wider travelling public ;)
      Domestically the telco and trusted brands Interactive voice response (IVR) will record the rest of the wider populations over years.
      That 1 or 5 min chat with Bob or Sally in telco support is not just kept for training purposes or quality control :)
      Your billing details have been matched with something globally unique.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    2. Re:US Customs by Neil+Boekend · · Score: 5, Insightful

      With the youtube videos a computer has difficulty determining who is in the video.
      At the airport you have to identify yourself. Your name is entered right with the voice data.

      --
      Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
  5. This is going to backfire in an ugly way by duck_rifted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My voice sounds different on every single device I've ever heard it played back from. That's in addition to it sounding different based on the time of day; bass in the morning, flat at night. On top of that, it sounds different based on my mood and health. So, this has a high potential for false positives and false negatives.

    Then there's the matter of reproducing voiceprints. People have done that for decades for practical jokes, comedy routines, and more. It's not only possible; it has been done already and can readily be done by anybody who puts a little effort into learning how.

    Finally, there's the matter of fraud. Combine the two above observations, and your bank can forge your "voice signature" and then play back audio if you can even afford to take them to court. Viola, the banks literally own absolutely everything and nobody has property rights.

    Brilliant.

    Using tech like this to improve voice recognition and speech synthesis is useful. Using it to verify identities is problematic and should be banned before it causes any serious problems, destroys lives and livelihoods, and wastes resources and time. This is quite possibly the worst, most easily abused application of technology I've ever heard of any government or institution being idiotic or corrupt enough to try.