Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) sent letters to six large banks – JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab, and TD Bank – that offer voice authentication services, outlining concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to generate voice clips that allow fraudulent actors to break into customers’ accounts.
Brown pointed to evidence of a number of breaches to voice authentication protections used by financial institutions, including those accomplished using AI and done by individuals.
“Despite these breaches, financial institutions continue to market voice authentication as safe and reliable without identifying the risks customers should consider before opting into this service,” Brown wrote. “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. Consumers deserve to understand how their voice data is being collected, stored, used, and retained.”
The letters included requests for responses to specific questions relating to the use of voice authentication and security measures being used by these financial institutions to ensure fraudulent actors cannot breach these protections using AI or other tricks and tools.