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After the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) halted a plan to verify taxpayer identities using a third-party facial recognition software platform called ID.me, senators and privacy experts alike are expressing concerns around how government agencies overall are using biometrics technology.
The IRS previously took the brunt of criticism from lawmakers like Reps. Ted Lieu and Yvette Clark for a lack of transparency around its partnership with ID.me, which provides identity proofing, authentication, and group affiliation verification for government agencies and businesses, according to its website. However, while the IRS has since reversed the use of ID.me’s facial recognition software for verification purposes, the Department of Labor, the Social Security Administration and up to 27 states reportedly still have contracts in place with the company for facial verification purposes.
In a letter to Department of Labor Secretary Martin Walsh, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) this week pushed back against the Department of Labor’s use of ID.me, citing privacy and civil liberties concerns, but also scrutiny over the outsourcing of core technology infrastructure to the private sector. Meanwhile, a letter from 45 privacy groups, ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), called for federal and state agencies overall to halt the use of facial recognition identity verification services, stressing that the “third-party technology should not be forced upon individuals by government agencies.”
Caitlin Seeley George, campaign director with Fight for the Future, said she is seeing an ongoing swell of pushback against facial recognition technology being used in both the public and private sectors.
“This is part of a larger trend we’ve seen over the past few years as facial recognition has spread,” said George. “This technology has popped up in people’s daily lives at restaurants, stores, banks and workplaces. As the uses have been spreading, people have been more aware and concerned about the impact it has on the privacy of their sensitive biometric data.”
Biometrics identification technology platforms are used widely in use cases that range from storefront surveillance for advertising purposes to Facebook’s (discontinued) functionality to identify people who appeared in albums and suggest users “tag” them. Law enforcement organizations and federal agencies have also used the technology to assist in criminal investigations. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report from July found that out of 42 federal agencies surveyed that employ law enforcement officers, six reported using facial recognition technology to help identify people suspected of violating the law during the civil unrest following the death of George Floyd in 2020, while three acknowledged using it on images of the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.
Unlike credit card data or passwords, the data that facial recognition systems identify can’t be replaced, leaving privacy advocates unsettled that the technology is being adopted so rapidly by both government agencies and private companies with little oversight.
“Right now, facial recognition is the wild west,” said Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director with the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project ( S.T.O.P.). “We are seeing growing reports of the technology being used, but there’s no comprehensive directory of what law enforcement agencies use it. Even more alarmingly, when police do use the technology, they are free to make it up as they go along, writing their own rules about how to use facial recognition, with no oversight by elected officials, the courts, or the public.”
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