Personal assistant authentication

One or more computer storage media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a computing device having a processor, cause the computing device to perform a method of authenticating a request received by a personal digital assistant, the method comprising:

• receiving from a user a verbal request for the personal digital assistant running on a user device to perform a task through an online service;
• determining that a security-challenge authentication procedure is required for the personal digital assistant to perform the task through the online service;
• determining that the security-challenge authentication procedure requires the user to respond to a user interrogation to authenticate the user;
• generating by the personal digital assistant the user interrogation by retrieving a fact from a set of semantic knowledge associated with the user and forming a question where the fact is a correct answer to the question;
• providing the user interrogation to the user audibly through a speaker in the user device;
• receiving an audible response to the user interrogation from the user through a microphone associated with the user device;
• determining that the security-challenge authentication procedure is satisfied by comparing the audible response to the fact;
• and
• upon determining that the security-challenge authentication procedure is satisfied, communicating an instruction to the online service to perform the task.

A method for authorizing a digital personal assistant to conduct a transaction with a third party comprising:

• receiving from a user a request for a computing application running on a user device to perform a task through an online service that requires security credentials from the user to complete the task, the online service is accessible to the user device through a network connection;
• determining that a security-challenge authentication procedure required for the computing application to perform the task through the online service requires the user to respond to a user interrogation to authenticate the user;
• generating the user interrogation by retrieving a fact from a set of semantic knowledge associated with the user and forming a question where the fact is a correct answer to the question;
• providing the question to the user;
• receiving a response to the question from the user;
• based on the response, determining that the security-challenge authentication procedure is satisfied because the response is the fact;
• and
• upon determining that the security-challenge authentication procedure is satisfied, instructing the online service to perform the task by communicating the security credentials to the online service and providing instructions about the task to the online service.