A senior Senate Democrat is urging the Internal Revenue Service to abandon the use of a facial recognition software for taxpayers to access their documents online.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden told the IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig in a letter Monday that the agency should not require taxpayers to use a third-party commercial facial recognition software, ID.me, to access their tax documents online. The IRS had previously said it would require people to upload images of their face to access their tax records from prior years starting this summer.
“While the IRS had the best of intentions — to prevent criminals from accessing Americans’ tax records, using them to commit identity theft, and make off with other people’s tax refunds — it is simply unacceptable to force Americans to submit to scans using facial recognition technology as a condition of interacting with the government online,” Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said the letter.
Wyden noted that nine other federal agencies and 30 states also use ID.me technology. He also said he was concerned that many facial recognition programs don’t work well for people of color, women and seniors, in addition to violating the privacy of users.
Wyden’s call for the IRS to jettison ID.me comes amid growing calls from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress for the agency to ditch the use of facial recognition software. The Treasury Department said last month that they are considering alternative verification methods but declined to specify what options they were weighing.
The IRS previously announced that any taxpayer looking to access an online account on IRS.gov will be required to be verified through ID.me in a process that requires taking a selfie. The website last year began requiring taxpayers to use ID.me to access personalized information about eligibility for expanded child tax credits funded by President Joe Biden’s pandemic relief program, the American Rescue Plan, among other services.
Research has shown that AI-driven facial recognition software often makes mistakes with darker-skinned people. That identified bias in the technology has prompted activists to call for law enforcement agencies to abandon using it altogether.
ID.me says it has verified the identities of some 70 million people. Those numbers grew rapidly as a result of its work for 27 states processing unemployment claims during the pandemic and helping combat fraud.
But ID.me has faced complaints that its software has resulted in innocent claimants being flagged for fraud. Many users have also struggled with ID.me’s process.
The company, which has been criticized for not being transparent about what sort of facial recognition technology it uses, last month said it kept a database of users’ images against which it compared new selfies. ID.me relies on controversial Amazon technology as part of its system.
