Forest Global Training Partners

Cyber Risks · Krebs on Security

IRS To Ditch Biometric Requirement for Online Access

Summary: The IRS said it will transition away from requiring biometric data, including live facial scans through ID.me, for taxpayers accessing records online, following criticism from privacy experts and lawmakers and a viral KrebsOnSecurity report on the signup process. The agency said the change will occur over the coming weeks to avoid disruptions during filing season and that it will develop an additional authentication process that does not involve facial recognition. The source also reports that roughly 30 states and 10 federal agencies use ID.me, which says it has about 64 million users with 145,000 new signups daily, and that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden urged the IRS to use Login.gov instead.

Key Takeaway: The IRS had been steering taxpayers toward handing biometric and personal data to a private company, and the reversal leaves open what method replaces it, with Wyden noting that agency noncompliance with the Login.gov mandate has already cost billions of dollars in fraud.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics
Data Breaches
Related