The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is right on schedule as it debuts voice biometric-based caller authentication into its contact centers with 30,000 people already enrolled (after roughly two weeks in service). It is a classic, demonstrable “win/win” situation for both the ATO and the tax-paying public. Coverage by Leon Spencer in ZD Net Australia and Rowan Smith in ComputerWorld Australia play up the improved efficiency and cost savings associated with voice-based authentication. The technology is credited with shaving 45 seconds off of each call. Given that the ATO handles over 8 million calls each year, it obviates the need for something on the order of 100 agents in the tax office’s contact centers.

During this phase of the roll-out ATO allows individuals to use their voice to authenticate themselves or business entities with which they are affiliated. In the next step third parties, such as registered tax preparers will be entitled to use their voice to self-authenticate. Also to the ATO’s credit it has created a Web site to answer commonly asked questions surrounding what to expect when enrolling and, subsequently, calling into the Office. To establish so called “ground truth” at the time of enrollment, citizens have to have their tax ID numbers as well personal information that includes date-of-birth, bank account number, relevant telephone number and address (for one’s residence or business) and “details from an ATO-generated notice” (meaning the sequence number of a document that only the taxpayer would have seen).

Once again, Australia demonstrates leadership in the implementation of voice biometric-based solution and we believe that other governments should take note and, perhaps, regard them as “Best Practices.”

Categories: Intelligent Authentication

Tags: Australian Taxation Office, Voice biometrics, authentication