Face Recognition ID.me and the IRS Failure

[Fred47]

I tried to create an account on the IRS site using ID.me using Firefox 96.0 with Kubuntu 20.04 LTS and failed when they tried to take my picture using my HP 17-bs049dx laptops camera. Camera came on but the picture was scrambled. I just gave up. Maybe I'll drag out my Windows laptop. Anyway this article came across my feed and thought I'd share. Maybe us Linux users will not be effected by this face recognition conspiracy. https://theconversation.com/governme...airness-175817

[jglen490]

I can, on some level, appreciate the need to be certain. However, the simple fact is that most IRS "customers" are not creepy criminals. Also, the "creepy criminals" are going to find other ways to do their creepy crap.

Facial recognition on a national scale is a bad idea; it's the stuff of intriguing SciFy and crime fiction.

[oshunluvr]

I believe the issue, according to the IRS and DOJ, isn't that there's a lot of "creepy criminals" as their "customers" but that amount of IRS based identity fraud has increased significantly. Usually this pertains to criminals filing false returns in your name, getting a refund, then leaving you holding the bag. It has gotten so bad the DOJ even set up a fraud relief fund. Social Security and other agencies dealing with a lot of this kind of fraud have or will institute the same requirements. I had this happen to an acquaintance and it took YEARS to straighten out completely. My solution is to just never qualify for a refund. If some criminal gang wants to pay my $6800 tax bill, let 'em.

If you object to the Government having your photo on file, the solution is to simply not use these online services, AFAIK, they're not required, it's just easier and quicker than waiting on hold for hours, making office appointments, or writing letters. Of course if you don't want your photo available, you'd also have to forgo any kind of travel, using banks, serving in the armed forces, getting health care, social security, blah blah blah. I think the day of keeping your face out of Government files and off of computers is long past.

The real complaint as I understand it, is the IRS is using the photos in a way they did not initially disclose. Supposedly, they announced they would only use the photo to compare against the ID provided at the time of verification - you're supposed to provide a photo ID and a selfie for comparison - but now it's been released that they are also storing the photos and doing database comparison searches to catch alleged, more sophisticated, fraudsters. I can see the logic, but I doubt seriously in any government agencies abilities to do something like this safely or with any real benefit to consumers, and it's a real slippery slope. They're probably just hoping it's annoying enough to deter a small percentage of criminals.

Another odd thing is how much more of this is being done elsewhere in the world and we never hear about it, like England.

[GreyGeek]

https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.co...venue-service/

Biden’s tax-and-spend budget plan is based on dishonesty, and I’m just talking about his preposterous claim that a massive expansion of government has “zero cost.”

• On the outlay side of the fiscal ledger, he’s actually proposing to increase the nation’s already-excessive spending burden by more than $5 trillion over the next ten years, not $3.5 trillion.
• Based on dishonest estimates of the “tax gap,” he claims that a massive expansion of IRS staff will allow enough new audits to generate hundreds of billions of extra revenue in the next decade.
• Most shocking, Biden’s budget even tries to mislead people by classifying some expanded welfare payments as tax cuts, simply because the IRS is the bureaucracy redistributing the money.

Today, let’s review another example of Biden’s dodgy approach to budgeting.

If you look at page 53 of his budget, you’ll see that the White House claims it can generate nearly $463 billion of tax revenue by having banks automatically share account information with the IRS.

[jglen490]

I hear ya, oshunluvr . The solution of facial rec will not solve the problem. The creeps doing the crap will simply grab your picture or mine and then the IRS will be "certain", but still wrong. As long as that facial image, even encoded, is transmitted sometime during the conversation between IRS agent and the customer, that image, even encoded, is at risk. As a citizen, I object to the risk that will now be on me and on my records with the IRS, while the IRS will have invested a considerable amount of appropriated dollars in a solution that they must believe in.

I'm not b******g about IRS employees, or even the IRS' existence. I'm just concerned about a solution that sounds good, but is not intrinsically sound.

[GreyGeek]

.... As a citizen, I object to the risk that will now be on me and on my records with the IRS, while the IRS will have invested a considerable amount of appropriated dollars in a solution that they must believe in.

I'm not b******g about IRS employees, or even the IRS' existence. I'm just concerned about a solution that sounds good, but is not intrinsically sound.

Dealing with the bureaucracy is 99% of the problem. A lawyer who is also a cartoonist wrote a book titled "The Illustrated Guide To The Law". The illustrations are his cartoons, graphically depicting what he is saying. I'm linking to a series of pages referring to "Strict Liability", which explains how someone innocently doing something simple, like picking up a feather on the ground, can be convicted, fined and serve jail time.
https://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1008

The problem is that most laws and regulations "on the books", by some counts over 500,000 laws, but most claim the actual number is not known or knowable. Most were written by bureaucrats giving that authority by our elected representatives.