Government, law enforcement and intelligence agencies are bolstering their identity verification methods in response to epidemic levels of security breaches, identity theft, password hacks and fraud. Moreover, the problem is only going to get worse as economies struggle and citizens find themselves in financial difficulty. At the same time, Governments are under pressure to deliver more services, more effectively and more efficiently to their citizens, yet with reduced budgets and funding. This paper discusses the risks of citizen self self-service for government applications. You’ll also learn how technology such as voice biometrics for speaker identification can make self-service applications viable – even in these tough economic times.

1. TECHNOLOGY WHITEPAPER
Securing Citizen Self-Service for Government
AURAYA SYSTEMS
One Tara Boulevard | Nashua, New Hampshire 03062 | +1 603 123 7654 | twitter.com/armorvox | linkedin/in/armorvox

2. Securing Citizen Self-Service for Government
How cash-strapped government agencies can deliver secure self-services even
in economically challenging times.
The Problem: Government Needs to Deliver More Services with Less Budget
Government, law enforcement and intelligence agencies are bolstering their identity verification
methods in response to epidemic levels of security breaches, identity theft, password hacks and fraud.
Moreover, the problem is only going to get worse as economies struggle and citizens find themselves in
financial difficulty. At the same time, Governments are under pressure to deliver more services, more
effectively and more efficiently to their citizens, yet with reduced budgets and funding.
Increased Use of Citizen Self-Service Fraught with Risk
In this environment, Governments often look to increase use of citizen self-service, either delivered
through the Internet or via the telephone. But the traditional secure solutions, such as PINs,
passwords and the use of personal information questions to authenticate identity to enable secure self-
service is rapidly becoming completely inadequate. These measures are no longer sufficient to
maintain strong identity authentication needed to deliver effective and secure government services.
Apart from the inconvenience of remembering yet another set of PIN’s and passwords for a government
service, there is the high cost and inconvenience of resetting them when they are forgotten, stolen or
compromised. Further, simply knowing a PIN or password does not mean to say it is you. PINs and
passwords are regularly shared, stolen and misused. In addition, providing personal information to
authenticate identity in call centers and helps desks (often to reset forgotten passwords) is equally
fraught with danger. Firstly, knowing a name, address, telephone number and other information is no
guarantee that you are who you say you are.
Furthermore, in government call centers and help desks; there is the added security threat from agents
being exposing citizens’ personal information to staff. In this situation, governments often need to vet
and closely manage call center and help-desk staff, adding further cost to already stretched budgets.
Amid these challenges, government agencies are increasingly turning to voice biometrics as a
technology to provide strong but efficient citizen identity authentication. Voice biometrics, a technology
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3. that authenticates a caller from their voice characteristics, is increasingly being used in citizen facing
services to streamline call center services and as an enabler of secure self-service applications.
Voice, like a fingerprint, is unique to each person. This fact can be used in telephone and Internet
services to positively authenticate that a person “is, literally, who they say they are”. Typically, in a
telephone service, for example, a person quotes an account number (or other information) to the
system. The system uses speech recognition to recogniser the account number and voice biometrics to
confirm it is the account holder saying their account number (and not an imposter trying to break into
their account).
The Solution: Voice Biometric Solution Ensures “You Are Who You Say You Are”
This way the technology eliminates the need for citizens to have PINs or passwords to access secure
services or indeed provide personal information to a call center or help desk staff to prove they are who
they say they are!
Centerlink, for example (the Australian social security department), has had a voice biometric system
in operation since 2009. This system, which now has around 1 million registered users, enables
regular callers to authenticate their identity by simply saying their Centerlink number, name and the
answer to a secret question. The system analyses the voice of the caller to confirm they are the
account holder and their request can then be immediately processed, either by a call center agent, or
by the telephone self-service system. The system eliminates the need for callers to quote personal
information to Centerlink staff or the need for citizens to remember PINs and passwords for access to
self-service applications.
IRD, the New Zealand tax office, is also rolling out a voice biometric system configured to authenticate
upwards of 800,000 citizens to make accessing taxation services that much more convenient for tax
payers, whilst driving cost saving for the government agency. Whilst designed primarily to streamline
access to taxation services and eliminate the hassle of PINs and passwords, the system has the side
benefit of addressing the upsurge of taxation fraud, which has been on the increase as economic
conditions worsen.
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4. More Benefits: Additional Security Expands Citizen Self-Service Applications That Can Be
Offered
The additional security provided by the voice biometrics has enabled Government departments to roll-
out a number of high security self-services applications that could not otherwise be deployed. One
example of this is “change-of-address”, a high-value high-use application, especially amongst young
and often highly mobile demographic (students for example). But whilst, implementing change-of-
address as a self-service application is relatively straightforward, deploying is not. The problem here is
that many identity fraud cases start with changing a victim’s address. PINs and passwords just do not
provide the level of security necessary to deploy such an application and prevent identity take-overs.
But, as voice biometrics (like fingerprinting) provide a strong positive authentication of a citizen’s
identity, it now possible and practical to deploy such applications and streamline high use services.
Government Secure Self-Services Pave the Way for Civilian Applications
And it is not just in telephone services that voice biometrics is finding applications. Developers are
increasingly using voice biometrics as a replacement for PINs and passwords to not only strengthen
security as required in Government services, but enhance convenience and usability in mobile and
tablet applications. These new government applications promise a bright future, not just for cash
strapped Government departments to deliver more efficient services, but enabling them to deliver these
services more effectively and with enhanced security in economically challenging times.
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5. About the Author
Dr. Clive Summerfield is Auraya Systems’ Founder and Chief Executive Officer.
Clive is an internationally recognized authority on voice technology and holds numerous
patents in Australia, USA and UK in radar processing, speech chip design and speech
recognition and voice biometrics.
As a former Founder Deputy Director of the National Center for Biometric Studies (NCBS) at University
of Canberra, in 2005 Clive undertook at the time the world’s largest scientific analysis of the voice
biometric systems leading to the adoption of voice biometrics by for secure services. That experience
lead Clive in 2006 founding Auraya, a business exclusively focused on advanced voice biometric
technologies for enterprise and cloud based services. Visit ArmorVox.com for Clive Summerfield’s full
bio.
About Auraya Systems
Founded in 2006, Auraya Systems, the creators of ArmorVox™ Speaker Identity System is a global
leader in the delivery of advanced voice biometric technologies for security and identity management
applications in a wide range of markets including banks, government, and health services. Offices are
located near Boston USA, Canberra and Sydney Australia. For more information, please
visit www.armorvox.com.com.
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