Why do I need to be silent for three seconds when receiving a call from an unknown person?
Recently, a reminder "Be silent for three seconds when receiving a call from an unknown person" has been flooding social media platforms. The reminder points out that criminals may deliberately remain silent after answering the victim's phone, luring the victim to respond with "hello" or "who". Voice samples of just a few seconds can be used by criminals to clone AI voiceprints, and then impersonate identities to commit fraud and other illegal crimes. Therefore, when answering a call, you can be silent for three seconds. If the other party continues to be silent, hang up in time. This reminder has sounded the alarm for us about bioinformation security.
“AI Empowerment”, Privacy Infringement Escalates Qualitatively
From voiceprints to faces, from irises to gait, AI technology is turning the most difficult to change biological characteristics into data that can be collected, copied, processed and utilized. What personal information security faces is no longer a simple risk of leakage, but a new type of deep threat.
——Excessive collection and unintentional theft of information. Relying on its powerful image and voice analysis capabilities, AI can batch extract standardized biometric features from public materials on the Internet. Some illegal APPs or platforms will excessively collect and senselessly capture users’ face and voiceprint data in the name of “face scanning” verification.
——Deep forgery breeds new types of crimes. In the age of AI, by adding a few seconds of voice to a photo, you can clone a 'digital clone' that looks just like the real thing. From borrowing money from ‘acquaintance’ videos to spreading rumors online, deepfakes are no longer just technology demonstrations, but are increasingly becoming a new means of abuse by criminals. When what you see with your eyes is no longer ‘real’ and what you hear with your ears is no longer ‘real’, the chaos of deep forgery continues to impact trust in cyberspace and threaten the security of people’s property and information.
——Information integration, inference and restoration of privacy. Some studies have shown that AI can rely on facial images to infer some body posture and physiological characteristics, and combined with gait data can assist in analyzing age and identifying emotional tendencies. If criminals obtain relevant databases, they can use genetic data to lock personal identities and infer kinship relationships. Overseas espionage and intelligence agencies may use this as a breakthrough point to infiltrate and incite rebellion, accurately target target groups, and then carry out activities that endanger national security.
Take multiple measures to build a strong bioinformation security barrier
While biometric technology brings convenience, it also puts forward higher requirements for information security. Let us work together to protect citizens’ biometric information in accordance with the law and protect everyone’s ‘biological key’.
——Comply with laws and regulations. Laws and regulations such as the Data Security Law of the People's Republic of China, the Cyber Security Law of the People's Republic of China, the Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China, and the Regulations on the Management of Network Data Security provide legal system guarantees for the protection of biometric information. The Supreme People's Court clarified that illegally obtaining, selling or providing citizens' personal information such as facial photos and videos, if the circumstances are serious, constitutes the crime of infringement of citizens' personal information. Legal red lines cannot be touched, and those who violate the law will be held accountable.
——Keep the source gate. The Internet is an important channel for the circulation of biological information and a key gate for privacy protection. All types of AI companies and network platforms need to embed compliance review into the entire process of data collection, model training, and product launch, strictly check the data authorization chain, and adhere to the principle of ‘no collection unless necessary, no use without authorization’.
——Weaving a dense line of national defense. Users need to increase their awareness of prevention, prudently grant various biometric permissions, pay attention to identifying the purpose, scope, information protection measures, etc., keep in mind the principle of ‘do not provide unless necessary’, and be wary of various privacy collection traps set by criminals.
