House lawmakers voice 'serious concerns' about facial recognition used by contractor ID.me

Key Facts

CNN — Two top House lawmakers on Thursday began probing ID.me, a company that uses facial recognition technology to verify identities for many state and federal agencies, into the “efficacy, privacy and security” of its services and products.
The 10-page letter, which was first reported by The Washington Post, noted that a number of reports have “raised concerns about ID.me’s performance on government contracts and the effectiveness of its products and services” and that users of ID.me have indicated long wait times to get their identities verified that range “from hours to weeks, as well as other roadblocks that have led to denied benefits.”
Many Americans encountered ID.me — and facial-recognition software — for the first time during the pandemic, as state employment agencies started working with the company to verify users online in hopes of cutting down on a surge of fraudulent claims for state and federal benefits that cropped up alongside a tidal wave of authentic unemployment claims.
The letter also noted how ID.me said as recently as January 24 that it does not use what’s known as one-to-many facial recognition, which attempts to match a photo of a person to ones in a database of faces (the kind of software police might use).