Privacy Advocates, Lawmakers Concerned About IRS's Facial Recognition Plan

The IRS has announced it will soon require people to use facial recognition technology to access parts of the agency’s website, and taxpayers are getting serious jitters.

The agency said it did not plan to require facial recognition for filing tax returns, CNBC reported. But by this summer, people who want to access certain information on the IRS’s website — including past tax records and information about the child tax credit — will first need to record a video of their face with a computer or smartphone, then send it to the private contractor ID.me to confirm their identity.

The setup — and ID.me’s $86 million contract with the IRS — has some privacy advocates worried about how well a private company will protect users’ images and personal data. There isn’t a federal law regulating how the data can be shared, The Washington Post notes.