The GSA is altering its digital identity service to let users authenticate themselves based on ID.
The General Services Administration (GSA) has announced that it is adding facial recognition to its digital identity services, letting users authenticate themselves based on using the technology to match their faces against a government ID already submitted to their accounts.
The new service will provide a single sign-on services for Americans using Login.gov.
In this way, Login.gov will accept facial recognition as an authentication against the image on an already-submitted government ID. Americans will be able to use this to gain access to online resources such as obtaining government benefits and services online. This, according to a recent announcement issued by the GSA.
The agency included in its announcement that the facial recognition technology will start rolling out in 2024. The GSA also pointed out that for people who don’t want to use that particular technology, it will also be rolling out another form of digital identity verification. The alternative digital identification method has yet to be determined, but it might involve real-time identity verification using a platform such as video chat.
Facial recognition and digital identification are meant to offer options agencies can choose to use.
“Login will provide the options and agencies will decide which parts of it to use,” said GSA Technology Transformation Services director Ann Lewis. “The goal of providing this broad swath of options is to be able to meet agencies where they are, meet needs where they are, meet the fraud landscape where it is and be able to use all that information and best-in-class technology tools to best serve the population.”
The new options are likely to make a change for many people who will be using online interactions with the government.
Login.gov is already being used in at least one app or program at every Cabinet-level agency of the US government. Moreover, it is used in more than 40 total federal and state agencies. It is used in programs such as online personal health records for veterans, unemployment insurance, and others. There are more than 70 million people who have used this authentication stage since its first launch in 2017.