If the voice on the phone says it’s your daughter, ask for the family safe word.
Voice cloning now takes a few seconds of audio from a video, a voicemail, a podcast. The call sounds right because it is her voice. A phrase only your family knows is the one thing the clone can’t reproduce.
Make one below, print it, and put it where someone would reach for it during a call they weren’t expecting.
Two words that have nothing to do with each other and nothing to do with you. Easy to say on a bad connection, impossible to guess from anything you’ve posted.
Optional. Printing the names settles the question of who to call when someone doesn’t answer.
How a phrase actually gets used
The word itself is the easy part. What makes it work is the habit around it, and the rule that the caller supplies it.
Ask, don’t offer
Never say the phrase first to see if they react. A scammer who hears it once has it for good. Ask for it and wait.
Hang up and call back
Use the number already saved in your phone, not the one they’re calling from. A real relative will pick up. This works even if the phrase is forgotten.
Keep it off every screen
No texts, no email, no notes app, no shared album caption. Paper only. Anything on a phone can be read by anyone who gets into that phone.
Change it after it’s used
Once a phrase has been said on a real call, or in a room where it could be overheard, it’s spent. Make a new one and reprint.
What your phrase can’t be
Every one of these is sitting in a public record or a broker profile right now.
- A pet’s name. It’s in your photo captions and half of your security questions.
- A street you lived on. Address history is the single most widely resold fact about you.
- A birthday, anniversary or age. Sold in bulk, and often the reason the call targets you.
- A school, team or hometown. Public on any profile you’ve had since 2009.
- A maiden name. Marriage records are public and indexed.
- Anything you’d pick as a password. If it’s memorable because it’s meaningful, it’s guessable.
The reason this list is so long
The details that make a good memorable phrase are the same details data brokers collect and resell. That’s also what makes a cloned voice convincing: the caller already knows your address, your relatives’ names, where you work.
You can see what’s exposed about you and start getting it removed.
See what’s exposed about youSend yourself the blank card
We’ll email the printable card and the one-page protocol so you can set this up with the rest of your family. We never include your phrase — the whole point is that it doesn’t live in an inbox.
Setting this up for a parent who lives alone, or for a whole facility? Ask us about printed cards.