As discussed above, typical authentication for communications involving a participant who currently resides or is incarcerated within a controlled environment (e.g., an inmate) involve a single authentication step such as providing a password, passing a biometric check. Moreover, whatever authentication step is performed for a call involving certain participants, the same authentication step is likely to be performed for another call involving different participants, even if one participant (or the behavior of the one participant) is more trustworthy than another participant. That is, the authentication step is static and does not change regardless of the participants involved in the call.

Relying only a single step for authenticating communications is problematic because such a security process can be easily circumvented. This becomes especially true when the single step remains unchanged for all calls and no matter the participant. For example, a controlled environment could employ the same authentication step, such as a username/password challenge. Because this step does not change, participants can easily anticipate the security step and undertake means to overcome it, such as by providing their username/password (or any other authentication credentials) to another unauthorized party.

Therefore, there is a need for a dynamic authentication system that is capable of varying the number of authentication steps and changing the types of authentication that is performed in each step from call to call and for different participants.

Exemplary Variable-Step Authentication System