[motbob]

To be clear, there is currently no good alternative to this. The way I see it, the IRS can switch to an invasive "selfie + utility bill" system, or it can remove self-service from their website altogether. It's important to keep tax information secure in order to protect the elderly and disadvantaged. After all, the victims of ID theft in tax are primarily taxpayers who are not regularly filing returns (like elderly and zero-income folks), since two "competing" returns will quickly alert the IRS to a problem.

The legacy IRS identity protection measures are both cumbersome and insecure, so getting rid of the latter problem is a big improvement.