[cornfutes]

I was just logging into the IRS website to check the status of my tax balance.

You used to be able to login with IRS credentials, but now it's a hard requirement to use ID.me credentials. So I created an account and had to verify my identity. The automated verification failed, so I waited 20 minutes on the phone to talk to one of the representatives. There was a checkbox to consent to having the meeting recorded. I opted out but the submit was disabled. Even before this, they took a 3d scan of my face. None of this seems like choice and options.

By the way, ID.me is a private company. They're even squatting on HackerNews: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13831921&

[redstonefreedom]

Lmao what a pathetic attempt at astroturfing. Absolutely shameless, god damn. Literally every single comment on that thread is a single-use account. "u/VeteranCrowd" points out that the founder is a veteran... ( ⌐■_■)

[pb7]

Thanks for calling this out. Didn't realize they rolled back the rollback of forcing ID.me usage. Despicable and the astroturfing even more so.

[paws]

Yeah, the current situation is pretty terrible. Deprecating the old credential-based auth flow, before adopting login.gov was a massive misstep. Five months ago I noticed the alert about deprecating the classic username/password auth, and posted about it [0].

As far as I know login.gov is a viable solution, already in use at the SSA, that is government-run aka doesn't require users to kowtow to an EULA, capricious arbitration, etc. The problem is there was apparently interagency squabbling that messed up the original deployment schedule. So it's not available. I do hope that changes because the current situation, of mandatory id.me seems pretty terrible.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35519938