What’s going on with the IRS

I guess the IRS still wants people to use the troublesome service id.me instead of something that the Government wants people to use that they built to do verification of who they say they are.

This article comes from Cyberscoop and is titled A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me.

Seems like my podcast series covered this then if not blogged then. I say this because it sounds so familiar to me somewhere.

The first paragraph says

When the IRS announced last year that it was working to roll out a government-administered tool to securely grant taxpayers access to online services, it seemed like a triumph for critics calling on the agency to end its controversial partnership with ID.me, a service that largely uses automated facial recognition to verify a taxpayer’s identity.

The second paragraph sounds like the government all right. It says

But a year and another tax season later, the IRS still offers ID.me exclusively with no alternative vendor or in-person options. The lack of progress raises questions about the federal government’s slow rollout of Login.gov and its reliance on a growing industry of private vendors to verify Americans’ identities in order for them to access public services online.

I don’t know who runs the IRS, whether some form of the government or what, but if it is the government, this probably doesn’t surprise me any and may not be much in the way of good news.

I don’t remember who ran the story last year, whether it was Brian Krebs or Cyberscoop, but I do remember reading how bad it was. There are things that are linked here, so if this interests you, you might want to check this out and see what the update is.

• Senators Urge FTC to Probe ID.me Over Selfie Data
• The IRS and Biometrics, they can’t make up their mind

These are the two big blogs that I found through jaredrimer.net search but there may be more elsewhere on the net.

Feel free to check those out for backstories or search it out elsewhere.

Stay well, stay safe, learn.