Saturday, February 19, 2022
WaPo Op-Ed: Taxpayers Will Pay An Monumental Value For The IRS Not Utilizing Facial Recognition
Following up on my earlier posts:
Washington Submit op-ed: Taxpayers Will Pay an Monumental Value for the IRS Not Utilizing Facial Recognition, by Stewart Baker (Steptoe & Johnson, Washington, D.C.):
The Inner Income Service’s use of face recognition know-how has unleashed a storm of congressional criticism from each Democrats and Republicans. This uncommon second of bipartisanship would deserve recognition — if the critics have been proper.
However they’re not.
The background is acquainted to anybody who pays federal taxes. The IRS and hundreds of thousands of taxpayers have been suffering from id fraud for years. Impostors have claimed different individuals’s tax refunds earlier than the actual returns have been even filed. They have collected billions in covid-19 aid advantages utilizing stolen identities. To stem the bleeding, the IRS contracted with ID.me, a non-public id verification agency. That agency makes use of, amongst different issues, face recognition know-how to match candidates’ video images to the images on their driver’s license or passport. …
Cowed by the accusations of bias and privateness, the IRS introduced that it’s going to “transition away” from face recognition. However each accusations are false, and the value that you simply and I’ll pay for this panicky retreat is big. …
[T]he privateness and fairness advantages of dropping face recognition are tiny. However the harms are staggering. Through the covid emergency, the federal government misplaced greater than $100 billion to American, Russian, Chinese language and Nigerian scammers utilizing stolen American identities. Day by day, extra victims of id theft discover themselves trapped in a nightmare of misplaced funds, spotty credit and typically even legal costs.
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2022/02/wapo-op-ed-taxpayers-will-pay-an-enormous-price-for-the-irs-not-using-facial-recognition.html
