The Strange Case of the IRS and Facial Recognition

In what looks like a fairly hasty policy revision, the US Inland Revenue Service (IRS) has modified its position that online tax filers in the US would be required to submit a selfie to a third-party identity verification company using facial recognition in order to access their IRS accounts.

The initial change to IRS rules on verifying identity online became apparent during exchanges between an IRS spokesperson and online technology media platform Gizmodo ¹, when it came to light that users with an IRS.gov account would no longer be able to log in with a simple username and password.

Instead, they would need to provide a government identification document, a selfie, and copies of their utility bills to Virginian-based identity verification firm ID.me to confirm their identity.