New IRS Online ID Verification Process, With ID.me, Has 17 Steps

The IRS’s new option for creating an online account requires taxpayers to follow a 17-step process to verify their identity, including a virtual interview with a third-party representative.

The agency announced this week that for this tax-filing season taxpayers will be able to verify their identity through virtual interviews with agents of a company called ID.me, instead of through facial recognition software. Taxpayers will also still be able to choose to verify their identity through ID.me using facial-recognition technology, the IRS said.

The IRS’s announcement of the video-chat option follows the agency’s decision earlier this month to move away from compulsory use of ID.me’s facial recognition authentication system.

According to ID.me’s website, taxpayers will speak to a company representative at the end of the multi-step process. Taxpayers will first need to provide ID.me with photos of two identification documents. After an agent reviews the documents, taxpayers will receive an email inviting them to join a video call and then wait for an agent to be available to chat.

The verification process will take about 5 to 10 minutes, plus any wait time for an agent, the company’s website said.

ID.me announced in January that it planned to hire an additional 750 agents to handle video chats. The company said in an email Tuesday that it expects to have more than 2,000 customer-service personnel, including video chat agents, by the end of this month.

The IRS said in a statement that for taxpayers who continue to use the facial-recognition option, “new requirements are in place to ensure images provided by taxpayers are deleted for the account being created.”

“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,” the agency added.

The facial-recognition option requires taxpayers to submit a photo of a government ID as well as a selfie, and does not require a virtual interview.

The IRS said that after this year’s filing season it plans to use Login.gov, which is run by the federal government and is already being used on some government websites, as an authentication tool.

“The General Services Administration is currently working with the IRS to achieve the security standards and scale required of Login.gov, with the goal of moving toward introducing this option after the 2022 filing deadline,” the agency said.

The IRS had started using ID.me for various web tools last year, and planned to transition more tools to the service this year. But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle raised privacy concerns about the technology, prompting the IRS to announce it would shift away from it.

—With assistance from Courtney Rozen.