Well, would you look at that — our collective discomfort with the ever-expanding surveillance state fostered by government agencies and Big Tech corporations has actually amounted to something. Earlier today, the Internal Revenue Service pledged that it would “transition away” from utilizing third-party facial recognition tech for taxpayer ID verification after intense backlash from both the public and bipartisan politicians.
Last month, word circulated that the IRS had partnered with ID.me to initiate a system that required taxpayers to upload a selfie if they wished to file their returns through the government website. If you can believe it, the news did not sit well with pretty much anyone for many reasons, including that persistent, pesky racial bias issue alongside the general uneasiness that comes from imagining a government contractor maintaining a database of taxpayer faces. After publicly announcing it would reevaluate that approach, the IRS confirmed today that the plan is dead in the water. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on whatever not-as-terrible alternative the government offers in the coming months.
