California Claims ID.me Stopped $125 Billion Worth of Employment Fraud

California Governor Gavin Newsom is singing the praises of ID.me’s identity verification solution. In his comments, the Governor called attention to ID.me’s utility as a fraud prevention tool, and credited the solution for helping the state to thwart $125 billion worth of fraud activity.

The Governor’s commendation comes as a bit of welcome news for ID.me, which is currently battling through a gauntlet at the national level. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are now investigating the company for failing to disclose the fact that it was using one-to-many facial recognition technology in its dealings with the IRS. The government has pegged the tech as a privacy concern, while the Senate, in particular, has suggested that the failure to disclose was a deceptive business practice.

The claims out of California demonstrate that the company has at the very least delivered a strong fraud prevention tool. The $125 billion in fraud attempts was specifically directed toward the California Employment Development Department (EDD), which was tasked with distributing unemployment relief during the COVID-19 pandemic. ID.me has been partnered with the agency since October of 2020, and has provided similar services for dozens of state employment departments all over the country.

The EDD integrated ID.me into its own UI-Online portal in an effort to streamline its screening procedures. In that regard, the agency reported that as much as 40 percent of its claims required some form of manual processing prior to the adoption of ID.me.

“ID.me works to support California EDD by saving taxpayer dollars and preventing identity theft while providing Californians with access to government,”  said ID.me Co-founder and CEO Blake Hall. “ID.me prevents fraud through heightened security assurance measures while at the same time expanding access to those who may struggle with older identity verification methods because they lack a credit history, bank account, or home address.”

ID.me has repeatedly highlighted the benefits of automated identity technology for employment agencies that are dealing with a high volume of claims. ID.me also received ISO and SOC 2 certifications earlier this month.

–

June 24, 2022 – by Eric Weiss