Privacy campaigners have said they believe HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) analysed and stored the voices of millions of British taxpayers without their consent.
The Information Commissioner鈥檚 Office is looking into complaints by Big Brother Watch against HMRC’s VoiceID system, which was launched last year.
The privacy campaigners have accused the service of creating 鈥榖iometric ID cards by the back door鈥� through its collection of 5.1 million audio signatures.
HMRC says the data is held securely and that callers had the option not to use VoiceID.
The Voice ID scheme asks callers to repeat the phrase “my voice is my password” to register. It then lets users confirm their identity when calling in about their taxes.
However Big Brother Watch is concerned that taxpayers have been 鈥渞ailroaded into a mass ID scheme鈥� as they weren鈥檛 given the choice to opt out.
With the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in full force since May, organisations must get explicit consent from users before gathering biometric data that could be used to identify them.
“These voice IDs could allow ordinary citizens to be identified by government agencies across other areas of their private lives,” said Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo.
The company has told HMRC to “delete the five million voiceprints they’ve taken in this shady scheme”, as there鈥檚 no lawful basis for the collection of the voice samples, which aren鈥檛 necessary to the service鈥檚 鈥榮tatutory function鈥�.
An HMRC spokesperson told 老九品茶Cloud that it takes its GDPR responsibilities extremely seriously and is 鈥渞esolving the issues between implied and active consent that may exist with our VoiceID system鈥�.
It said that customers could access its systems without using VoiceID and that聽there is聽no possibility of聽digital signatures聽being traced back to an individual outside of the system.
It added: 鈥淥ur VoiceID system is very popular with customers as it gives a quick and secure route into our systems. Our customers鈥� data, including for VoiceID, is stored securely. 鈥�