🇺🇸 U.S. Treasury Makes IDme Mandatory Despite Past Privacy Concerns
TreasuryDirect, the US Treasury's savings bond platform, is effectively mandating the use of private ID verification platform IDme. Those who do not complete IDme verification cannot access their accounts online.
In 2022, IDme admitted comparing users’ biometric data against a database of others, known as "one-to-many," despite previously claiming it only matched data against the user's identity documents.
Senators warned that false matches could wrongly prevent legitimate users from accessing government services, warning that "one-to-many" was prone to racial bias.
An Insider investigation that June raised further concerns about how those records were handled. Former employees said support staff could retrieve documents and selfies belonging to users they were not assisting, while sensitive documents circulated in an internal Slack channel.
Despite these earlier concerns, Treasury has required investors to verify their identity through IDme since October 28 to access TreasuryDirect.
Senators are demanding that Treasury explain how it will deal with facial recognition civil liberties concerns, and investigating whether Treasury authorizes IDme to retain biometric data and compare users’ biometric data against that of others.
"Americans should not have to provide sensitive personal information to IDme as the price of accessing essential government services," the senators wrote.
🔗 https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/10292026_102726_letter_to_bessent_and_bisignano_on_idme.pdf
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