Voice Messages Compromised as Electronic Documents?
New technology is apparently capable of reproducing human speech very accurately – i.e. the speech of particular people.
Researchers have found automated and human verification for voice-based user authentication vulnerable, and explore how an attacker in possession of voice audio samples could compromise a victim’s security, safety and privacy.
It seems pretty clear to me that an electronic recording of a voice (as in a voice-mail message) is an electronic document within the meaning of all provincial e-commerce/transactions legislation. We (the folks who wrote the uniform law) considered the voice as a kind of biometric and saw no reason in principle to exclude them (though Australia’s electronic Transactions Act limited their use, as I recall)
What this news item suggests is that the biometric is not as reliable as we used to think. But at law, this does not invalidate the use of such electronic messages, any more than the fact that handwritten signatures (another kind of biometric) can be forged prevents the use of signed documents on paper.
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