UK examines ethics of biometric voice recognition technology in public sector
09/09/2025 | UK Government
The UK Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group (BFEG) has published a briefing note on the ethical and legal use of biometric voice recognition technology in the public sector. The BFEG’s evidence, gathered from various stakeholders, suggests that the use of this technology will likely increase due to advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
BFEG found that government regulation and oversight in this area are currently limited. Furthermore, the paper highlights several key ethical concerns, including the technology’s scientific accuracy, inherent bias in its training datasets, the collection of data without informed consent, a lack of human oversight, and the inability to effectively detect deepfakes and spoofing.
The BFEG views government regulation as the most effective way to ensure ethical use. In the absence of this, the paper provides a set of recommendations that organisations using the technology should adopt.
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