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This IRS He said on Monday he was abandoning any effort to use facial recognition technology on taxpayers after a bipartisan backlash from senior lawmakers who described the idea as a disaster for privacy and security.
Agency officials said the move aims to weed out scammers to protect taxpayers who want to look at their records.
But IRS‘s record of computer problems and the involvement of a third party to run the service enraged Democrats and Republicans.
“ IRS We take taxpayer privacy and security seriously and understand the concerns raised.” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said. “Everyone should feel comfortable with how their personal information is secure, and we are rapidly pursuing short-term options that do not include facial recognition.”
This IRS He said the transition will take place “in the coming weeks” as the agency tries to manage the current tax filing season without major cuts.
Taxpayers can submit declarations and pay their invoices electronically without having to surrender to technology. But anyone who wanted to check their child tax credit information, get a tax transcript, or set up a payment plan online would be told to register. ID.mea private vendor, for verification.
The system was announced late last year and should go into effect this summer. A Social Security number, photo ID and a video “selfie” would be required to prove the identity of the requester.
Having such information in the hands of a private company was troubling to Democrats and Republicans, who applauded the campaign. IRSface to face.
“The Treasury Department made a wise decision,” said Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
Facial recognition technology has become a key touchstone in the debate over the tension between cybersecurity and privacy.
Government agencies and private companies are desperate for tools to prevent cybercrime, which is estimated to cost trillions of dollars each year.
Facial recognition offered an opportunity to verify the identities of people accessing services.
But the technology has disadvantages, including false negatives, especially among some minority populations. Given the ability of hackers to breach government systems, the storage of such biometric data by the government or its contractor was worrisome.
This IRS In 2019, he said he was battling 1.4 million cyberattacks each year and suffered a major breach during the Obama administration in what became known as the “Get Transcript” hack.
Hackers were able to match personal information such as Social Security number and date of birth, along with some taxpayer information, to access hundreds of thousands of records.
This IRS There have also been several high-profile leaks of taxpayer information, Republican senators noted in a letter late last week.
“The decision millions of Americans have had to make is to pay the price of giving away their most personal information, their biometric data, to an outside contractor, or to revert to an age of slow-moving, inaccurate, and paper-ruled bureaucracy. Some might say processed in ways incompatible with contemporary life,” the senators wrote.
As the anger intensifies, ID.me defended its technology late last month.
The company said its plan is to verify using “1:1 face-matching technology.” He said the user’s face is mapped to a stored image, similar to unlocking a phone.
The company compared it to “1:multi-face recognition,” which scans an image against a database of many faces. The company said it used 1:many technology to try to identify anyone who registered multiple accounts, which could be an indication of fraud. But I was told that it is not a verification tool.
The company said a government agency ran “independent tests” and found no discernible bias in the technology’s success rate when comparing demographic groups. ID.me He also said that a live agent could step in to assist those whose faces cannot be verified by a selfie and matching algorithms.
“Many government agencies rely solely on credit bureaus and/or data brokers to verify identity for access to online services. These solution providers are outpacing many groups.” ID.me said founder Blake Hall.
It’s unclear what the company’s two-year, $86 million contract will be. IRS.
The Washington Post reported on Monday that the General Services Administration, which handles essential services for most of the federal government, will not use facial recognition technology for its service.
The GSA said it did not trust the technology to be applied fairly.
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