Posted on 02/21/2022 10:06:31 PM PST by UnwashedPeasant
After an initial backlash over its facial recognition feature, the Internal Revenue Service said Monday it started a new option that will allow taxpayers to sign up for online accounts without the use of the controversial biometric data. Taxpayers wanting to use its services online will still have to use ID.me to register, but people will have the option of verifying their identity during a “live virtual interview” instead of uploading a video selfie. “This is consistent with the IRS’s commitment earlier this month to transition away from the requirement for taxpayers creating an IRS online account to provide a selfie to a third-party service to help authenticate their identity,” the IRS said in a statement. ID.me said in its own statement that the verification process with an agent will take from 5-10 minutes, not including the wait time for the next available video chat agent. The IRS said taxpayers will still have the option to use facial recognition if they like through ID.me. “For taxpayers who select this option, new requirements are in place to ensure images provided by taxpayers are deleted for the account being created,” the IRS said. “Any existing biometric data from taxpayers who previously created an IRS Online Account that has already been collected will also be permanently deleted over the course of the next few weeks.” Earlier this month, the IRS said it would “transition away” from requiring taxpayers to take selfies and verify their identities through ID.me following concerns about privacy and data security.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
They will not delete the images. They want this so that they WILL have your images in a dossier.
If you go on a video chat, then they will have your image anyway.
And how does any of this verbal diarrhea do anything to improve either privacy or data security?
The new confessional?
So peoples’ “concerns about privacy and data security” got them to back down. That’s good.
Too bad we can’t get them to back off the tyranny of COVID.
IRS? Data security? What’s that?
Given what is essentially a Hobson’s Choice, where one selection is as bad as the other, I’ll just stick with facial recognition. I don’t want to be put through something like a Job Interview with a Robot before I can gain access to my IRS info. I may not be in the mood for banal or silly questions.
But heaven forbid we ask people to show ID to vote.....
Blowing something up people’s wazoos and claiming it’s fresh air and sunshine … SOP for our Arbitrary government that doesn’t need no stinking Constitution.
But it’s not actually backing down. It is offering a more intrusive option if you don’t like their original plan.
Some sites ask you questions like:
Which of these cities have you livex in?
Which of these people do you know?
What was your last car payment?
...
If that is the automated interview then its not big deal. They derive those questions/answers from data that is already “out there”.
totally stupid. I go to the IRS in downtown in person if I have a problem. Case solved. No facial and id me bS.
“Which of these cities have you livex in?
Which of these people do you know?
What was your last car payment?”
Believe it or not, they ask these same questions when you open a seller account on ebay and amazon.
So no need for an ID to VOTE but to pay your taxes they want your info. Such blatant hypocrisy.
A few years back, I tried answering questions such as about credit accounts, addresses or phone numbers I had now or in the past... got it wrong, so they said. I think it was for Social Security. No way did I get it wrong. Their data was wrong.
The presumptiveness on the part of the IRS is galling insofar as you cannot open an online account without a webcam or cell phone. Try making direct contact with ID.me. You will search in vain for a phone number. They are based out of McClean, VA.
Drivers’ license and state ID databases. They already *have* a dossier on every adult with one of those.
If the info is already out there, then using it to authenticate people is logically flawed, because others have access to the same data.
“because others have access to the same data.”
“Out there” doesn’t mean publicly available to anyone.
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