IRS FORGETS USING FACIAL RECOGNITION

February 17, 2022 - Douglas Myser

IRS forgets using facial recognition. In the aftermath over the January 6th attack on the Capital, and the outcry over government intervention and intrusion into the lives of American citizens, the IRS has given up for now on the IRS facial recognition technology it was thinking of using. It seems other reasons also were voiced by members of Congress. The reversal was on plans to require taxpayers to authenticate their identity with a nongovernmental facial recognition service to use certain online services. In a news release the IR announced that it will "transition away from using a third party service for facial recognition to help authenticate people creating new identities and new accounts online." The authentication method is already in use for some interactions and optionally for taxpayers creating or using online accounts and other services. Back in November of 2021, the IRS had issued a statement saying that a facial recognition account would be mandatory for anyone using the IRS online account. IRS forgets using facial recognition.

A group of Senate Republicans wrote to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig and stated that the IRS's planned expansion of its use of ID.me and safeguarding of the resulting huge trove of Americans biometric and other personal data was a huge risk. Given the number of data breaches at private companies in recent years, the Senate Republicans seemed leary of giving ID.me all of the Social Security and biometric information of every American. "The government and private companies have an unfortunate history of data breaches," the senators wrote. And they noted, as a private business, ID.me "is not subject to the same oversight rules as a government agency". In the transition reversing that plan, the IRS said it would seek to avoid any disruption to the current tax filing season. It seems that having private companies, for now, are not going to be used to administer this technology, which it seems at some point will be used for additional security at the IRS. IRS forgets using facial recognition.

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