[brnaftr360]

Why does the IRS even think they need this? I feel like this was developed from an incident at a stripclub after a ritzy dinner, which was then proceeded by hookers - and less to do with practical scrupulous enforcement of the tax code.

[pupdogg]

> Why does the IRS even think they need this?

It is very common for the government to use its various arms to institute large data collection efforts in the name of national security. A selfie video of yourself on a modern day phone provides for the government a high definition facial recognition vector for identification purposes. I'm sure you can imagine all of the use cases of having this critical data.

Personal Story: My wife and I travelled abroad right before COVID in early 2020. On the way back, we didn't interface with any customs agents at the airport. Instead, there was a portable robot that took our pictures and advised us to proceed to exit. I can only imagine which image database it referenced for a perfect match to allow entry (passport, driver's license, social media?, etc). From a security standpoint, I would assume that the matching capability/requirement of such system had to have been best of the best.

[mortehu]

Isn't the bigger story here that you were able to enter a country without a photo ID? Or did you not make the connection that it could simply compare you to the photo on your passport, like a person would do?

[wmf]

The IRS is facing massive online fraud and their budget probably doesn't allow internal development of... anything.

[somenewaccount1]

I would love to see how much this system actually costs taxpayers and how much it saves in fraud. Knowing a bit about both of these, I suspect it's lopsided in a bad way.

[wmf]

You have a point, but there are also second-order effects of letting fraud run wild.