The Treasury Department recently announced it would reconsider the Internal Revenue Service’s use of ID.me for providing access to its website. The agency explained to Senator Ron Wyden that it plans to drop the use of facial recognition tech for verification purposes. The rollback will happen gradually over the coming weeks in order to minimize disruptions during the tax filing season.
The IRS originally intended to make a full transition to ID.me this summer as part of an effort to improve the security of its website for taxpayers when they access their tax accounts online. However, that plan quickly fell apart after ID.me CEO Blake Hall said his company uses a complex one-to-many facial matching technique and also checks faces against those of known criminals.
