Alabama officials are working with MorphoTrust USA (Safran) to offer citizens a biometric authentication solution for their tax returns. Based on MorphoTrust’s eID (‘electronic ID’) solution, the system will let citizens use a selfie to validate the authenticity of their tax filings.
Those who opt in will be required to submit photos of their faces along with their tax returns, with the government then proceeding to use MorphoTrust’s eID system to match those selfies against the images in the citizens’ official identity documents, such as driver licenses. It’s an optional extra layer of security designed to offer peace of mind to taxpayers. In a statement announcing the move, Alabama Revenue Commissioner Julie P. Magee called it an “innovative initiative” that “will allow all taxpayers to put the control in their own hands – and it specifically gives a way for those who have already had issues with identity theft to attain a level of comfort and protection that they did not have in the past.”
It’s the same system already being trialled in Georgia and North Carolina, with pilot projects having been announced last autumn. And there may be more to come, with MorphoTrust CEO Bob Eckel calling it “a significant focus” for the company as it strives to “be ready to protect against this type of fraud by the 2017 tax season.”
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May 18, 2016 – by Alex Perala
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