House investigators reported Thursday that a federal contractor that provided identity verification services for the Internal Revenue Service exaggerated the amount of money being lost to pandemic fraud in an apparent attempt to increase demand for its product and that it also overstated its capacity to provide services.
The investigation of ID.me, which uses facial recognition to verify identities in some cases, was launched in April after critics of the software company said it could be a target of cyberthreats and presented privacy concerns. Other advocates were critical of a private company taking on what should be a core government task of verifying people's identities to receive benefits.
