The General Services Administration’s (GSA) Technology Transformation Services (TTS) group announced that Login.gov will now offer facial recognition technology to all of its partners as an identity verification offering.
GSA earlier this year announced that it began piloting facial recognition for the single sign-on service in May, aiming to leverage the technology to achieve evidence-based remote identity verification. The Login.gov platform acts as a “front door” to the Federal government, serving more than 50 agencies and nearly 300 million sign-ins annually since 2017, according to GSA.
Login.gov will now offer one-to-one facial matching technology that confirms a live selfie image- taken by the user matches the photo on a photo ID, such as a driver’s license.
“Login.gov does not use one-to-many facial identification and does not use these images for any purpose other than verifying a user’s identity,” GSA said. “This approach reflects Login.gov’s longstanding commitment to ensuring the privacy of its users.”
Login.gov will continue to offer its existing strong identity verification and authentication solutions alongside this new offering, GSA said.
During the pilot phase, the new facial recognition technology was independently certified to be in line with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) digital identity guidelines – Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2) requirements.
“Proving your identity is a critical step in receiving many government benefits and services, and we want to ensure we are making that as easy and secure as possible for members of the public, while protecting against identity theft and fraud,” said GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan. “Login.gov’s new IAL2-compliant product offering is another milestone in ensuring agencies have a wide variety of strong identity verification options.”
“Login.gov heard from our agency partners with higher-risk use cases that it was important that we offer a version of our strong identity verification service that is IAL2 certified,” said Hanna Kim, director of Login.gov. “We’re glad that we’ve been able to do this while ensuring that users continue to have multiple secure pathways to verify their identity, whether that is in-person or remote. Looking ahead, we will continue to uphold our values of equity, privacy, and transparency by incorporating best-in-class technology and learning from academic and user research.”
House Republicans Want Information on NIST’s Digital Identity Guidelines Update
In a separate letter this week, House Science, Space, and Technology Committee leaders queried NIST Director Laurie Locascio on the updated Digital Identity Guidelines and how they can help federal agencies address concerns with the use of facial recognition technologies.
NIST released a revised version of its digital identity guidelines in August, asking for public comment until Oct. 7.
In the letter, Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., Research and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Mike Collins, R-Ga., and Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., noted concerns with the reliability, accuracy, and security of facial recognition technologies.
“Despite the many advantages of face recognition technologies, their trustworthiness has long been questioned, particularly as it relates to personal privacy issues. There have also been concerns raised about the accuracy of face recognition technology and the use of biometrics to authenticate a user,” the members said.
The members requested in the letter that by Oct. 22 NIST share the findings of its digital identity and face recognition technology work and explain how the updated guidelines will work to alleviate concerns about facial recognition technologies.
