Recent testing by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) exposed inconsistencies in the effectiveness of remote identity verification technologies. The RIVTD evaluations, which tested more than 3,000 combinations of biometric ID proofing systems, found that only 5 percent achieved a success rate of at least 90 percent in accurately verifying legitimate users, Arun Vemury, director of DHS’s Biometric and Identity Technology Center, told NextGov.
The findings highlighted the challenges in current digital ID technologies where systems intended to secure online interactions and prevent fraud may not be as reliable as had been assumed. And these concerns take on an additional significance as digital ID verification increasingly is being interwoven with public policy initiatives. Under the Trump administration, there is a growing push to integrate and accelerate identity proofing into federal payment systems to combat fraud.
Billionaire Elon Musk and his highly controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are advocating for stricter ID verification requirements before disbursing federal benefits, a position that was echoed this past week a new and equally controversial Social Security Administration (SSA) policy requiring online or in-person ID verification for people applying for benefits by phone. The move has raised serious concerns over accessibility, as SSA already faces staffing shortages and office closures, as Biometric Update reported this week.
Meanwhile, the divisive Georgia Republican, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, called for deploying ID verification systems on federal payment processors, claiming that it would save the government up to $1 trillion annually. Greene said on her X account that, “During my first DOGE committee hearing, it was exposed that nearly $1 TRILLION dollars per year of fraudulent and improper payments could be saved simply by putting identify verification software on federal government payment processors. This would stop checks from being sent to dead people, illegals, and criminals in foreign countries just by verifying people’s identity.”
Greene’s claim is rooted in statements that were made by LexisNexis Risk Solutions for Government CEO Haywood Talcove during a recent hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability’s Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency which Greene chairs.
Talcove said that, “between federal, state, and local government … you can save $1 trillion a year by simply putting in front-end identity verification, eliminating self-certification, and monitoring the backend of the programs that are providing the benefits.”
LexisNexis is one of a handful of companies providing selfie biometrics and other identity proofing technologies to the GSA as part of a pilot to bring Login.gov into compliance with IAL2.
While Talcove’s insights shed light on the potential benefits of enhanced ID verification measures, his claim that $1 trillion could be saved by putting robust identity verification measures in place on government benefits and other programs require further empirical validation.
Fraud prevention in the federal government is a legitimate concern, but historical data indicates that the role of digital ID verification in reducing fraudulent activity is a lot more complicated and nuanced. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), for example — Congress’ investigative arm — reported in September 2023 that up to $135 billion in unemployment benefits were lost to fraud during the pandemic, and that identity fraud was a major contributing factor.
However, a not insignificant portion of those losses stemmed from Congress’ initial decision not to require documentation when establishing pandemic relief programs for individuals such as the “self-employed and certain gig economy workers who were unable to work because of specified COVID-19 reasons,” thereby creating an environment inherently vulnerable to exploitation.
GAO has not provided a comprehensive estimate of the total fraud losses across all pandemic-era benefit programs, and it remains unclear just how much of the estimated $521 billion in annual fraud across all federal programs is specifically attributable to identity-related issues.
Despite the Trump administration’s advocacy for stricter identity proofing solutions throughout government, there are trade-offs that must be considered. And implementing them comes at a cost, both in financial terms and in potential barriers for legitimate users.
Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and Disability Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says claims that the primary cause of SSA overpayments is because of widespread fraud are unfounded, and that a shift toward more stringent ID verification won’t likely yield expected cost savings.
Romig emphasized that of the approximately 67 million individuals receiving Social Security benefits, only 0.1 percent are over the age of 100, making allegations of mass fraudulent payments to deceased individuals implausible. Moreover, higher verification standards risk excluding individuals who struggle with digital verification processes due to technological limitations or their inability to access to required documents.
One of the core areas that was assessed by the S&T study was selfie-to-ID photo matching. While more than half of the tested systems achieved a match rate exceeding 99 percent, only the top-performing system reached a perfect 100 percent match rate. Moreover, the ability of the tested technologies to detect fraudulent attempts varied significantly, with only 63 percent having successfully rejected 99.9 percent of fakes. More worrisome was the lack of publicly disclosed data on error rates in distinguishing between real and fake IDs. DHS opted to withhold specific figures to avoid inadvertently aiding fraudsters.
“The error rates were quite large,” Vemury told NextGov.
The variability in performance raises questions about the reliability and security of ID proofing systems, particularly as the Trump administration and the private sector continue to expand their use. DHS’s findings suggested that factors such as the type of identity document, the state of issuance, and even the smartphones that were used to capture images all play significant roles in the accuracy of ID proofing solutions.
Some systems demonstrated strong capabilities, like Facephi’s identity verification system which recorded a low Bona Fide Presentation Classification Error Rate of under 0.2 percent, and Paravision’s which had a combined liveness error rate well below 5 percent. Idemia’s liveness detection technology also performed well, successfully preventing all attempted attacks while maintaining high accuracy across demographic groups. However, most other vendors’ solutions exhibited weaknesses that could compromise both security and accessibility.
DHS’s evaluation aligns with previous studies on the disparities in the effectiveness of digital ID verification. Prior government-academic collaborations found that only two out of five commercial identity proofing solutions produced equitable results across different racial and ethnic demographics. This discrepancy indicates a pretty urgent need for industry-wide improvements and standardization to prevent unintended bias and to ensure consistent performance. DHS S&T’s research underscored a fundamental challenge in ID verification technology. And that is the assumption that rejected applicants are fraudulent.
Vemury also noted that any increased problems a user may have with an ID verification process can cause legitimate users to simply give up because of the difficulty in completing the process. And the consequence of this raises questions about whether identity proofing systems strike the correct balance between fraud prevention and user accessibility and ease of use.
To address these ongoing challenges, DHS launched the Remote Identity Validation Rally (RIVR), which is a series of competitive technology challenges designed to foster innovation and improve the reliability of remote identity verification solutions.
The RIVR initiative signals a recognition that existing technologies require significant enhancements before they can be considered fully effective in real-world applications. As both government and private sector entities continue to rely on digital ID verification for secure transactions, the findings from DHS’s evaluations will play a critical role in shaping future policy decisions and technological advancements.
Ultimately, though, the effectiveness of digital ID verification will be contingent on ongoing research, industry improvements, and carefully considered policy implementations. There may be broad agreement on the importance of combating fraud, but the latest DHS testing serves as a reminder that current solutions are far from perfect and that there are other contributing factors to fraud that ID verification won’t fix.
Article Topics
biometrics | DHS S&T | digital identity | document verification | face biometrics | fraud prevention | identity verification | Remote Identity Validation Technology Demonstration (RIVTD) | selfie biometrics