From next month, individuals and sole traders will be able to log into the ATO’s mobile app using voice authentication.
Photo by ostill (Shutterstock), With Associates
ITNews reports on the move, which will be rolled out to the mobile app to compliment the existing service that allows for voice authentication when calling into the ATO’s existing call centre.
The ATO is partnering with Optus for the voice biometric work, using Nuance’s Freespeech system for authentication. According to the ATO, more than 760,000 individuals have already enrolled with the system.
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3 responses to “ATO Will Add Voice Authentication To Its Mobile App”
I had to call them the other day and the recording mentioned this. Something about it being a billion times better than a thumbprint.
So I can do my BAS returns with the app and dodge the AUSKEY (PITA)? Or the fact that Chrome is not supported by ATO and I need Internet Explorer for doing some stuff?
For bringing down security?
Whether face, iris, fingerprint, typing, gesture, heartbeat or brainwave, biometric authentication could be a candidate for displacing the password if/when (only if/when) it has stopped depending on a password to be registered in case of false rejection while keeping the near-zero false acceptance.
Threats that can be thwarted by biometric products operated together with fallback/backup passwords can be thwarted more securely by passwords alone. We could be certain that biometrics would help for better security only when it is operated together with another factor by AND/Conjunction (we need to go through both of the two), not when operated with another factor by OR/Disjunction (we need only to go through either one of the two) as in the cases of Touch ID and many other biometric products on the market that require a backup/fallback password, which only increase the convenience by bringing down the security.
In short, biometric solutions could be recommended to the people who want convenience but should not be recommended to those who need security.