By Paresh Dave
(Reuters) – Twenty-seven U.S. states are using identity proofing service ID.me, which compares selfies to official photo documentation, to vet whether jobless applicants are who they say they are, according to the company. Its fast growth has generated scrutiny.
States using ID.me, according to company and government officials, are Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.
Twenty-one states are using identity verification services from Relx Plc’s LexisNexis, which compares submitted information such as Social Security numbers to credit histories, utilities records and device data. The company declined to name clients, but Kansas, Maryland and Ohio have publicly confirmed its use.
Arizona, Florida, Ohio, New York and Wisconsin are among states using a fraud detection system from Alphabet Inc’s Google Cloud to analyze claims.
Thomson Reuters Corp’s Pondera software, which spots suspicious patterns among applicants is being used in seven states including California and Nevada.
Login.gov, the U.S. government’s internally developed ID.me competitor, uses LexisNexis and other systems for checks and has over 30 million users across 27 federal agencies. It became available to states in February.
(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Additional reporting by Jeffrey Dastin; editing by Edward Tobin)
