The U.S. Coast Guard has seen an uptick in the number of fake distress calls it has received in recent months and is looking to counter the problem with voice recognition technology, the Verge reported.

Tasked with law enforcement and search and rescue missions in both domestic and international waters, fielding prank calls has become costly for the Coast Guard since it has to respond by deploying aircraft and clearing airspace for its mission.

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In response to the pranks, which have been happening nearly every day in recent months, the Coast Guard is planning to adopt voice recognition software to identify the phony callers.

The fake calls come in through the Coast Guard’s VHF radio channel, essentially the maritime version of 911. Unlike a typical phone call, the radio communications do not have any identifying information like a phone number — and tracking the source of the transmission presents a number of challenges.

While these challenges make it hard to eliminate fake callers, voice recognition may be able to catch the pranksters as the Coast Guard believes most of the calls originate from a small number of callers.

The biometric tool can pick up on the voice of the caller and match it should the person ever call in again. This would give the Coast Guard the ability to recognize a fake call from a known prankster before deciding to invest more resources in a mission that won’t amount to anything.

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It’s not entirely clear if the Coast Guard’s adoption of voice recognition technology will provide any relief from the pranksters; many software systems record an extended conversation — up to 40 seconds of talking — to ID a voice accurately, and callers can potentially thwart the system just by disguising how they talk.

If technology can’t solve the problem, the Coast Guard reportedly will pursue other ways to identify the callers in hope of making a high-profile arrest and potentially scaring off other callers.

The voice recognition software likely wouldn’t give the Coast Guard what it needs to make such an arrest or obtain a warrant but would be a solution that would mitigate the damage of the calls without leading to jail time for the callers.

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