U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has forwarded correspondence to six large banks offering voice authentication services, noting concerns about the potential for fraud from artificial intelligence (AI) generated voice clips.
Brown, chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, sent letters to JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab, and TD Bank.
“In recent years, financial institutions have promoted voice authentication as a secure tool that makes customer authentication faster and safer,” Brown wrote. “Customers have used voice authentication tools to gain access to their accounts. According to news reports, however, voice authentication may not be foolproof, and they highlight several concerns.”
According to Brown, despite breaches, financial institutions continue to market voice authentication as safe and reliable without identifying the risks customers should consider before opting into the service.
“We seek to better understand what measures financial institutions are taking to ensure the security of the voice authentication tools and the steps they are taking to ensure strong data privacy for voice data,” Brown concluded. “Like a fingerprint, face ID, or retinal scan, voice data is among the most intimate types of data that can be collected about a person. Consumers deserve to understand how their voice data is being collected, stored, used, and retained.”