ID.me

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ID.me

Basic information
Founded	2010
Legal Structure	Private
Industry	Identity verification
Official website	https://id.me

ID.me is an online identity verification service founded in 2010 by Blake Hall and Matt Thompson. The goal of ID.me is "to be the last login you ever need to create and manage and the last time you need to verify your identity." Businesses such as Chipotle, Chick-fil-a, NBA, and Belk use ID.me to verify if a customer is a college student/employed, a real person, or served in the military to receive deals, purchase event tickets, or military discounts.

Consumer-impact summary

Freedom

Users can request to close their ID.me accounts and opt-out of marketing emails and personalized advertisements.

Privacy

According to the privacy policy, ID.me "will not sell, rent, or trade your Personal Information", however user information such as biometric, first name, last name, date of birth, phone number, email address, and physical address may be shared with federal government agencies. In addition, the company may share user information to third parties, such as customer support, web hosting, information technology, payment processing, direct mail and email distribution, and administration, and analytics services.

To create an ID.me account, you need to give personal information, which can include:

• First name
• Middle name
• Last name
• Email
• Phone number
• SSN/ITIN
• Street address
• Postal code

When a user requests to close their account, data is retained for three years. This data includes "events, logins, and transactions as well as verification history (e.g., community, vaccine, or identity details including documentation and data elements used for verification".

Business model

ID.me is funded by private equity firms such as Ares Management funds, Ribbit Capital, Viking Global Investors, and CapitalG.

Market control

ID.me is the primary verification system used in the United States for businesses and governments, due to the service being "the only digital wallet that meets the federal government standards for secure login and multi-factor authentication [...] at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Identity Assurance Level 2". As of November 2024, ID.me has over 136 million members, 600+ stores, 65 health organizations, and 19 federal agents using their service.

Incidents

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This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the ID.me category.

Privacy concerns (2022-)

Main article: link to the main article

American taxpayers who use DirectFile are forced to utilize ID.me as a service. The IRS have claimed the service is "the only credential service provider currently available to the IRS that meets the identity assurance level 2 standard for identity verification and sign-in services", however, some lawmakers expressed their disapproval of the reliance on ID.me for tax filing, including Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, and Katie Porter who mention the facial recognition's part in the wrongful arrest of black men.

According to John Titlow from Business Insider, while trying to change his phone number on is ID.me account to apply for unemployment, the support agent asked for his sensitive information over email, including scans of a passport and social security card. It is a standard rule of thumb to never send sensitive information over email due to many email providers such as Gmail and Outlook not encrypting the contents of emails.

See also

Link to relevant theme articles or companies with similar incidents.

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