Britain’s FBI to use ‘voiceprints’ to convict crooks
BRITAIN’S ‘FBI’ is secretly building a database of voice recordings to catch criminals, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The audio library is being developed by the National Crime Agency so that suspects can be identified by their unique ‘voiceprint’.
Recordings captured at crime scenes or during undercover surveillance will be compared with samples kept on file.
Agents could even try to get hold of data taken from smart home speakers like Amazon’s Alexa to see if speech patterns match those of known gang bosses.
The system will be similar to controversial facial recognition technology already being used to catch criminals. But privacy and civil liberties groups fear the latest move would create ‘yet another state-held library’ without ‘clear rules’.
Law- enforcement chiefs have already started quietly recruiting intelligence officers for their Voice Analytics scheme and also briefing experts on the technical and ethical challenges. A senior NCA officer earlier this year told the Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group – a quango that advises the Home Office – the scheme had ‘significant potential for improving public safety and security’.
However, members of the Government advisory group said the ethical considerations were similar to those of facial recognition, with one observing ‘research pertaining to public opinion on voice capture needs to be undertaken’.
The crime agency says it is looking at how to make the project ‘ legally compliant and publicly acceptable’. There has been growing concern over the use by police of facial recognition to scan crowds in order to target known criminals.
It also emerged last year that HM Revenue & Customs had stored five million taxpayers’ unique ‘ voiceprints’ without asking for their consent and was forced to delete the huge database.
The first public details of the secret voice analysis project emerged in a job advert seeking a £ 20- an- hour intelligence officer to work on the scheme at the NCA’s headquarters in Vauxhall, South London. It states: ‘Voice Analytics (VA) system will allow the creation of a library of voiceprints.
‘The base technology is engrained in the day-to-day life (Alexa, Siri, etc.) of the public.’
The role would involve drafting applications to ‘carry out covert and other activity for the purpose of intelligence gathering’ and creating ‘products for evidential or intelligence purposes or to inform operational, tactical or strategic decision-making’.
Last night, Silkie Carlo, director of civil liberties group Big Brother Watch – which exposed the HMRC scandal – told The Mail on Sunday: ‘We’re alarmed by the secret creation of yet another state- held library of people’s voiceprints. This raises serious and urgent questions that the NCA must answer.
‘Voice analytics lack a convincing legal basis, evidence basis, or any oversight in the UK.’
Professor Paul Wiles, the UK’s Biometrics Commissioner, said there needed to be ‘clear rules’, adding: ‘It is crucial to maintain public trust in what the police are doing.’
An NCA spokesman last night said the project ‘remains at a very early stage’, adding: ‘All development work is also being managed in conjunction with appropriate regulatory bodies and law enforcement partners to consider what oversight of voice analytics would be required to ensure any work would be ethical, legally compliant and publicly acceptable.
‘ A recent job advert... which was posted by an external recruitment agency, was incorrect to suggest the role included work on home devices.’