Cybersecurity funds should go towards beefing up Centrelink voice authentication, Greens say

The federal government should be using some of the $10bn allocated in the budget to cybersecurity defences to combat people using AI to bypass biometric securities including voice authentication, a Greens senator has said.

After the Guardian Australia journalist Nick Evershed cloned his own voice, he was able to access his account using his cloned voice and his customer reference number.

The voiceprint service, provided by the Microsoft-owned voice software company Nuance, was being used by 3.8 million Centrelink clients at the end of February, and more than 7.1 million people had verified their voice using the same system with the Australian Taxation Office.

Guardian Australia has sought comment from the deputy prime minister and defence minister, Richard Marles, who is responsible for the ASD.

Shoebridge said the government should also audit agencies using voice recognition to ensure any further security flaws were identified and fixed.

Between August 2021 and June 2022 it was used in 11.4% of all child support calls, or more than 450 each working day.