In a May memorandum, GSA announced that beginning June 8, the agency would start collecting information for new contracts of all sizes — including “micropurchases” — from software offerers and contractors. That information would attest to government-specified secure software development practices.

Nick Mistry, the chief information security officer for Lineaje, a software supply chain security management company, said in an interview with FedScoop that he believes GSA’s June 8 start for the new guidance is “a really good thing for both the industry and government.”

The self-attestation requirements “will obviously add another step in the process, but it’s a very necessary step,” Mistry said. “Will there be a period of confusion where people don’t know exactly what’s required, both on the government side as well as industry side? But I think those things will just shake out over time. I think the net benefit is all positive.”

A GSA spokesperson said in an email to FedScoop that the agency “held multiple industry listening sessions before crafting our implementation of OMB memos M-22-18 and M-23-16. GSA took feedback from these sessions into consideration while also ensuring we met the deadlines in the OMB memoranda.”

The spokesperson noted that the agency “met the deadline for implementation to best support our customer agencies” and integrated the self-attestation form into its existing IT standards process to make attesting “as frictionless as possible” for the GSA’s vendors. 

The GSA  is encouraging software vendors to create an account on the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s repository website, the spokesperson added.

In March, CISA released the Secure Software Development Attestation Form, which required the companies that manufacture software used by the federal government to “attest to the adoption of secure development practices.” That form could either be submitted to a repository or emailed to the relevant agency. 

GSA noted in its May memorandum that while the agency already had a requirement for its IT department to “approve software before it could be acquired and used,” the OMB memo mandated the department to update “how it collects, reviews, retains and monitors industry attestation information.”

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Though Freedom of Information Act requests to the tax agency can still be filed through FOIA.gov, the mail, by fax, or even in person, the IRS’s decision to point online filers to ID.me — whose facial verification technology has, in the past, drawn scrutiny from Congress — has raised some advocates’ eyebrows

Alex Howard, who directs the Digital Democracy Project and also serves on the FOIA Advisory Committee hosted out of the National Archives, said in an email to FedScoop that language on the IRS website seems to encourage ID.me use for faster service. It also doesn’t make significant references to FOIA.gov, a separate governmentwide portal that agencies are supposed to work with by law, he said. 

“While modernizing authentication systems for online portals is not inherently problematic, adding such a layer to exercising the right to request records under the FOIA is overreach at best and a violation of our fundamental human right to access information at worst, given the potential challenges doing so poses,” Howard said. 

The IRS defended its use of the service in responses to FedScoop questions, noting the other ways people can file FOIA requests and that the tool is only required of those seeking to interact with their public records electronically. The agency also said that ID.me follows National Institute of Standards and Technology guidelines for credential authentication services.

“The sole purpose of ID.me is to act as a Credential Service Provider that authenticates a user interested in using the IRS FOIA Portal to submit a FOIA request and receive responsive documents,” a spokesperson for the agency said. “The data collected by ID.me has nothing to do with the processing of a FOIA request.”

The IRS website currently directs people trying to access the agency’s online FOIA portal to use ID.me, which describes itself as a “digital passport” that “simplifies how individuals prove and share their identity online.” According to one IRS page, the “IRS Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Public Access Portal now uses a sign-on system that requires identity verification.” Those hoping to access online FOIA portal accounts created before June 2023 also must register for ID.me, the site states. 

The ID.me login page directs users to the FOIA portal, stating that those who can’t verify their identity can try visiting the ID.me help page or pursue alternative options. From there, another page tells users to try “another method” for submitting a FOIA. 

The system requires users to upload a picture of their ID: They can choose between taking a selfie and using biometric facial verification software that compares the image to their ID — or wait for a video appointment to confirm their identity. 

The system also appears to prompt users to share their Social Security number and includes terms of service that discuss the handling of biometric data. Two FedScoop reporters tried registering with the system: one had their expired identification rejected and had to attempt again with a passport, while the other’s driver’s license could not be “read” the first time but was accepted during a second attempt in combination with the video selfie. Both FedScoop reporters later received a letter, by mail, notifying them that their personal information was used to access an IRS service using ID.me.

What an ID.me scan looks like when signing into the IRS’s FOIA portal.

The IRS spokesperson said that the collection of a Social Security number is related to the digital authentication process, not the processing of the FOIA request itself, and biometric information is not retained by the IRS. 

“The IRS requires ID.me to delete the selfie and biometric information within 24 hours for taxpayers who verify using the self-service process,” the spokesperson said, adding that “ID.me is also required to delete any video chat recording within 30 days for taxpayers who choose to verify using the video chat pathway.” 

An ID.me spokesperson said in an email to FedScoop that no state or local agency uses the system for identity verification or as authentication for FOIA portals.  

The FOIA portals for the Treasury Department and Social Security Administration do use ID.me, the company spokesperson noted, but both agencies seem to provide more information on alternative submission options to submit requests online. ID.me referred additional questions regarding the IRS’s use of the company’s FOIA portal to the tax agency. Treasury did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

The Social Security Administration offers both ID.me and Login.gov — another government-run ID service — as options to log into its FOIA portal, FOIAXPress Public Access Link. Like the IRS, the SSA said in response to FedScoop questions that mail, fax, email and FOIA.gov are alternatives to filing FOIAs. A Social Security number is not required for accessing FOIAXpress, though it appears to be required for signing into ID.me, which some users might be using to file FOIA requests. 

“In the scenario where a customer uses their ID.me account to access FOIAXpress PAL, the customer selects this sign in option on the login page and is redirected to a webpage on ID.me’s website,” an agency spokesperson said. “If the customer creates an account in this session, ID.me retains info on the registration event in their records.

They continued: “Upon successful account creation, the user is routed back to SSA’s website and allowed access to FOIAXpress PAL. SSA and ID.me retain info on the transaction in our respective records.”

“Submitting a Social Security Number to ID.me is related to the digital identity authentication process; generally it is not required for the FOIA process,” the IRS spokesperson added. 

Albert Fox Cahn, a privacy-focused attorney who directs the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, expressed concerns about the IRS’s use of ID.me. “This isn’t just creepy and discriminatory, it might break federal law,” he said in a statement to FedScoop. “Under FOIA, public records belong to the public, and no one should have to hand over their biometric data just to see the records they’re entitled to access.” 

The use of ID.me by the government has sparked concerns in the past. In 2022, some members of Congress accused the company of downplaying wait times and misleading people about the way its facial recognition technology worked. The company, meanwhile, has defended its practices, including its work on fighting fraud during the pandemic.

Matt Bracken contributed to this article.

This story was updated June 11, 2024, to update Alex Howard’s professional affiliation.

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The congressional watchdog noted in its release that the VA has implemented six of its 29 open priority recommendations, including the deployment of an automated data tool used to improve acquisition workforce records and taking steps to modernize the agency’s performance management system across the Veterans Health Administration. 

Assessing software licenses, however, is something that the VA needs to address, per the watchdog. In January, the GAO issued a report on software licenses throughout the federal government,  noting that the VA had neglected to regularly compare software license inventories that are currently used with purchase records. 

In the new priority recommendations, GAO noted that the federal government spends more than $100 billion yearly on cyber and IT-related investments. 

“Until VA implements this priority recommendation and consistently tracks and compares its inventories of software licenses to with known purchases, it is likely to miss opportunities to reduce costs on duplicative or unnecessary licenses,” the report states. 

Other high-risk governmentwide areas that could impact the VA, according to the GAO, are “improving the management of IT acquisitions and operations” and “ensuring the cybersecurity of the nation.”

Charles Worthington, the VA’s chief AI and technology officer, said in a recent interview with FedScoop that he believes the VA’s technical infrastructure “is actually on pretty good footing,” pointing to the agency’s migration to the cloud and using commercial products in the software-as-a-service model, “where it makes sense.”

Other priority recommendations from the GAO cover the VA’s electronic health records (EHR) modernization program, including one that directs the agency to implement “leading practices for change management.” The other nine involve evaluating whether the system is “operationally suitable and effective” to ensure that the system satisfies customer needs, establishing “user satisfaction targets” to protect patients’ health and safety from unnecessary risks, and validating that future systems are not deployed too early. 

“Implementing these … recommendations would also help solve existing problems with the system,” the GAO stated.

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NOAA’s budget request seeks $6.6 billion in discretionary appropriations, an increase of $224.8 million from the enacted level for fiscal year 2024. But under that request, certain programs would still see decreases, which lawmakers on the Environment Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee called into question Tuesday.

In opening remarks, Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., who chairs the full committee, said he was “extremely disappointed” that NOAA’s proposed budget decreases funding for its Oceanic and Atmospheric Research division and weather and air chemistry research programs. Those programs were given additional responsibilities and increased authorizations under the bipartisan Weather Act Reauthorization passed in April.

“Yes the budget request is simply a request, and at the end of the day Congress controls the purse strings,” Lucas said. “But the budget request is also a message to all stakeholders and industry, and NOAA’s message is this: the need for improved early and accurate forecasting of severe weather is not a priority for this administration.”

Rep. Deborah Ross, D-N.C., the subcommittee’s ranking member, expressed similar concerns in her opening remarks about cuts to programs within the OAR and the National Ocean Service. 

“These funding reductions would negatively impact NOAA’s capacity to execute coastal observations, ecosystem protection, ocean exploration, innovative research, educational outreach and many more important functions that advance the agency’s mission,” Ross said. “I hope we can discuss strategies to continue the essential work of these programs even under the constraints of the Fiscal Responsibility Act.”

The Fiscal Responsibility Act is a compromise deal that temporarily suspended the debt limit and set caps on defense and nondefense discretionary spending through fiscal years 2024 and 2025. That deal has an additional constraint to the budget process, causing agencies to make difficult choices about their investments.

The hearing also comes as science agencies and programs across the government experienced reductions in the fiscal year 2024 appropriations, including OAR. While the budget for 2025 would be an overall increase in discretionary spending for the agency, it would also decrease the agency’s National Ocean Service budget by 14% and the OAR budget by 11%, according to numbers provided by the subcommittee.

NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in his opening remarks that the budget request seeks funding for five areas: investing in the next generation of environmental satellites; addressing climate change through training professionals and expanding technology; providing science and data that informs economic development; improving knowledge-sharing and service delivery in tribal, urban, and rural communities; and reducing the agency’s maintenance backlog. 

Spinrad said NOAA is prioritizing funding for its satellite constellation. That includes development of its Geostationary Extended Observations satellite program, which the agency says aims to expand weather, climate and ocean observations. 

Notably, the National Weather Service also plans to begin transitioning the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System to a cloud framework. Spinrad said that work “will give forecasters secure remote access to provide in-person, impact-based decision support services to decision-makers anytime, anywhere.”

Another program that received attention for proposed cuts was the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System Program, known as IOOS, which uses data and technologies to provide information and forecasts for the ocean, coasts and Great Lakes.

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., asked Spinrad how the fiscal year 2025 budget request proposes a $32.5 million cut, or 76% reduction, to that program’s funding, adding that she’s “concerned about some kind of budgetary cliff” when funds from the Inflation Reduction Act expire. That bill provided $3.3 billion to NOAA.

Spinrad said IOOS is one of several programs that reflects “the very difficult decisions that we had to make in this budget,” in part because of the constraints under the Fiscal Responsibility Act and the agency’s commitment to sustaining its current work, such as its investment in satellites and ensuring mission-essential functions don’t falter. 

While the IRA is providing some funding for the program, Spinrad said, it’s not one-for-one. He said he’s meeting with IOOS regional directors to understand what the reductions mean. “We’ve directed that data management [and] cyber infrastructure be the specific activity that is sustained,” he said.

Ross also told Spinrad she was concerned about staffing cuts at the National Weather Service, especially as the hurricane season “is predicted to be extremely active.” 

The fiscal year 2024 budget cut roughly 100 positions from the NWS, Ross said, adding that if the fiscal year 2025 budget doesn’t increase staffing to inflation levels, it “could increase the burden on an already strained workforce.” She asked Spinrad how an “austere” staffing budget would impact the service.

“Our ability to bring people on board is not where I want it to be,” Spinrad said, adding that the agency hired 1,700 people last year, but still needs to focus on retention. NWS Director Ken Graham, Spinrad noted, “is working aggressively to optimize the staffing plan” for weather forecast offices.

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The House GOP’s Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Bill, released this week by committee Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., targets the IRS’s Direct File program via a policy rider that prohibits the funding of “a government-run tax preparation software that Congress has not authorized.” 

Just last week, the IRS announced that Direct File would be made permanent following a pilot program that saw more than 140,000 taxpayers across 12 states use the free electronic filing system. The tax agency said the program received more than $90 million in refunds and reported $35 million in balances due during its pilot run. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen touted Direct File further this week during testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, noting that all states will be invited to participate in the program “as soon as next filing season,” with expansion on the horizon “to support all of the most common tax situations over the next few years.”

House Republicans’ bill, which cuts the IRS’s budget by $2.2 billion from fiscal 2024 funding levels, is the culmination of months of sustained attacks on Direct File from GOP members of Congress, state attorneys general and state treasurers and comptrollers. 

The highly lucrative tax preparation industry has also been gunning for Direct File. In an April statement to FedScoop, a spokesperson for Intuit — maker of TurboTax — said the tax agency’s Direct File post-mortem included estimates that were “clearly low, inaccurate, and the IRS even acknowledges conveniently leaving out necessary costs to build and run the pilot.”

Democrats, meanwhile, railed against Republicans’ proposed cuts to the IRS — which include a $2 billion reduction in enforcement funding — and especially the move against Direct File. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a statement that “the centerpiece” of Republicans’ budget plan for the IRS is “helping rich people cheat on their taxes.”

“If Republicans have the opportunity, they will deprive law-abiding taxpayers of the choice to file their taxes for free with the IRS’s new direct file program by shutting it down before it expands nationwide,” Wyden said. “In short, the winners in this plan are rich tax cheats like Donald Trump, and the losers are typical Americans who earn a wage, follow the law and want to file their tax returns every spring without getting ripped off by big tax software companies.”

News of the GOP’s Direct File targeting came amid a victory lap for the IRS and its Document Upload Tool, which processed its one millionth taxpayer submission. The agency had a limited rollout of the tool in 2021 and expanded it substantially in 2023 thanks in part to funding from the White House’s Inflation Reduction Act.

“The Document Upload Tool is a key part of our ambitious initiative to transform the IRS into a virtually paperless agency, and we continue to see increased use of this by taxpayers,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement. “This tool saves time for taxpayers and helps IRS employees process responses faster and more efficiently.”

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In an interview with FedScoop, Charles Worthington, the VA’s CAIO and CTO, said the agency is engaged in targeted hiring for AI experts while also sustaining its existing modernization efforts. “I wish we could do more,” he said.

While Worthington wrestles with the proposed fiscal year 2025 funding reductions, the VA’s Office of Information and Technology also finds itself in the legislative crosshairs over modernization system upgrades, a supposed lack of AI disclosures and inadequate tech contractor sanctions and ongoing scrutiny over its electronic health record modernization initiative with Oracle Cerner. 

Worthington spoke to FedScoop about the VA’s embrace of AI, the status of its modernization push, how it is handling budget uncertainty and more.

Editor’s note: The transcript has been edited for clarity and length. 

FedScoop: I know that you’ve started your role as the chief AI officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs. And I wanted to circle back on some stuff that we’ve seen the VA engaged with this past year. The Office of Information and Technology has appeared before Congress, where legislators have voiced their concerns for AI disclosures, inadequate contractor sanctions, budgetary pitfalls in the fiscal year 2025 budget for VA OIT and the supply chain system upgrade. What is your response to them?

Charles Worthington: I think AI represents a really big opportunity for the VA and for every agency, because it really changes what our computing systems are going to be capable of. So I think we’re all going to have to work through what that means for our existing systems over the coming years, but I think really there’s hardly any part of VA’s software infrastructure that’s going to be untouched by this change in how computer systems work and what they’re capable of. So I think it’s obviously gonna be a big focus for us and for Congress over the next couple of years. 

FS: I want to take a step back and focus on the foundational infrastructure challenges that the VA has been facing. Do you attribute that to the emerging technologies’ need for more advanced computing power? What does that look like?

CW: I think overall, VA’s technical infrastructure is actually on a pretty good footing. We’ve spent a lot of time in the past 10 years with the migration to the cloud and with really leaning into using a lot of leading commercial products in the software-as-a-service model where that makes sense. So, by and large, I think we’ve done a good job of bringing our systems up to standard. I think it’s always a challenge in the VA and in government to balance the priorities of modernization and taking advantage of new capabilities with the priorities of running everything that you already have.

One of the unique challenges of this moment in time is that almost every aspect of the VA’s operations depends on technology in some way. There’s just a lot of stuff to maintain; I think we have nearly a thousand systems in operations. And then obviously, with something like AI, there’s a lot of new ideas about how we could do even more [to] use technology and even more ways to further our mission. 

FS: In light of these voiced concerns from legislators, as you progress into your role of chief AI officer, how do you anticipate the agency will be able to use emerging technologies like AI to its fullest extent?

CW: I think there’s really two priorities that we have with AI right now. One is, this represents an enormous opportunity to deliver services more effectively and provide great technology services to the VA staff, because these systems are so powerful and can do so many new things. One priority is to take advantage of these technologies, really to make sure that our operations are running as effectively as possible. 

On the other hand, I think this is such a new technology category that a lot of the existing processes we have around technology governance in government don’t apply in exactly the same ways to artificial intelligence. So in a lot of ways, there are novel concerns that AI brings. … With an AI system that is, instead, taking those inputs and then generating a best guess or generating some piece of content, the way that we need to make sure that those systems are working effectively, those are still being developed. At the same time, as we’re trying to take advantage of these new capabilities, we’re also trying to build a framework that will allow us to safely use and deploy these solutions to make sure that we’re upholding the trust that veterans put in us to manage their data securely. 

FS: In what ways is the agency prioritizing AI requirements, especially from the artificial intelligence executive order that we saw last October, and maintaining a competitive edge with the knowledge that the fiscal year 2025 budget has seen a significant clawback of funds?

CW: We are investing a lot in standing up, I would say, the AI operations and governance. We have four main priorities that we’re focused on right now. One is setting up that policy framework and the governance framework for how we’re going to manage these. We have already convened our first AI governance council meeting — we’ve actually had two of them — where we’re starting to discuss how the agency is going to approach managing our inventory of AI use cases and the policies that we’ll use. 

The second priority is really focused on our workforce. We need to make sure that our VA staff have the knowledge and the skills they need to be able to use these solutions effectively and understand what they’re capable of and also their limitations. We need to be able to bring in the right sort of talent to be able to buy and build these sorts of solutions. 

Third, we’re working on our infrastructure [to] make sure that we have the technical infrastructure in place for VA to actually either build or, in some cases, just buy and run AI solutions. 

Then, finally, we have a set of high-priority use cases that we’re really leaning into. This was one of the things that was specifically called out to the VA in the executive order, which was basically to run a couple of pilots — we call them tech sprints — on AI.

FS: I would definitely love to hear some insights from you personally about some challenges you’re anticipating with artificial intelligence, especially as you’ve referenced that the VA has already been using AI.

CW: I think one of the challenges right now is that most of the AI use cases are built in a very separate way from the rest of our computing systems. So if you take a predictive model, it maybe takes a set of inputs and then generates a prediction, which is typically a number. But how do you actually integrate that prediction into a system that somebody’s already using is a challenge that we see, I think, with most of these systems.

In my opinion, integrating AI with more traditional types of software is going to be one of the biggest challenges of the next 10 years. VA has got over a thousand systems and to really leverage these tools effectively, you’d ideally like to see these capabilities integrated tightly with those systems so that it’s all kind of one workflow, and it appears naturally as a way that can assist the person with the task they’re trying to achieve, as opposed to something that’s in a different window that they’ve got to flip back and forth between. 

I feel like right now, we’re in that awkward stage where most of these tools are a different window … where there’s a lot of flipping back and forth between tools and figuring out how best to integrate those AI tools with the more traditional systems. I think that’s just kind of a relatively unfigured-out problem. Especially, if you think of a place like VA, where we have a lot of legacy systems, things that have been built over the past number of decades, oftentimes updating those is not the easiest thing. So I think it really speaks to the importance of modernizing our software systems to make them easier to change, more flexible, so that we can add things like AI or just other enhancements.

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In a pair of priority open recommendations, the Government Accountability Office said the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission have succeeded in establishing coordination mechanisms with other federal regulators and financial working groups to identify the risks posed by blockchain-related products and services. But neither the Fed nor the SEC has “regularly” convened those bodies since the GAO delivered its recommendation in August 2023.

Lacking a cadence in convening these groups, the GAO said, means both agencies are unable “specifically to identify the full range of risks and regulatory challenges of existing and emerging blockchain products and services and provide a timely response to any unaddressed risks.”

The Fed, which neither agreed nor disagreed with the GAO’s recommendation, said it “routinely engages with the other federal financial regulators on emerging risks posed by blockchain-related products and services.” The banking regulator noted that it participates in information-sharing on identifying blockchain risks with other regulators in the Digital Asset Working Group, but the GAO is pushing for “planning processes for identifying and addressing such risks” within that group. 

“Fully implementing this priority recommendation would help the Federal Reserve and other financial regulators collectively identify risks posed by blockchain-related products and services and develop and implement a regulatory response in a timely manner,” the GAO stated.

The SEC, meanwhile, told the GAO that it works to identify crypto-related risks in the agency’s work with the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and some international bodies. FSOC “established a coordination mechanism” through the Digital Asset Working Group, the SEC reported to the GAO, adding that the working group “meets regularly and has discussed a variety of topics, including regulatory developments, rulemakings, risks, data collection, and market developments.”

The GAO called the Digital Asset Working Group “a positive step,” but prodded the SEC to embrace planning documents.

“Such planning documents could include (1) objectives and meeting frequency; (2) processes for identifying the full range of risks and regulatory challenges concerning blockchain-related products and services (not only those related to financial stability); and (3) processes for responding to these risks and challenges within agreed-upon timeframes,” the GAO said.

Beyond blockchain, the GAO re-upped a second priority recommendation to the Federal Reserve, which was originally delivered in 2019. The watchdog wanted the Fed, along with other banking regulators and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to finalize “written communication that gives banks specific direction on the appropriate use of alternative data in the underwriting process when partnering with fintech lenders.”

The Fed teamed with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency a year ago in issuing interagency guidance on third-party risk management, but the GAO said that the guidance falls short on specificity.

The guidance “does not include specific direction to banks that engage with fintech lenders on the appropriate use of alternative data in the underwriting process,” the GAO wrote. “Rather, the guidance broadly applies to all topics and third-party relationships. Accordingly, it does not address specific topics, such as the use of alternative data, or specific types of third-party relationships, such as relationships with fintech companies.”

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The decision to make Direct File a permanent program comes after a pilot this year that allowed taxpayers in 12 states to electronically file their federal returns directly with the agency at no cost.

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement that taxpayers this filing season delivered a “clear message” to the agency in wanting “one no-cost option for filing electronically.”

“Giving taxpayers additional options strengthens the tax filing system,” Werfel said. “And adding Direct File to the menu of filing options fits squarely into our effort to make taxes as easy as possible for Americans, including saving time and money.”

More than 140,000 taxpayers — in Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming — used Direct File in 2024, according to the agency, receiving more than $90 million in refunds and reporting $35 million in balances due.

The IRS said in a Direct File 2024 post-mortem last month that there was “steadily increasing interest” in the program, though Werfel had to “consult a wide variety of stakeholders” before rendering a decision on its future. 

Now that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has accepted Werfel’s recommendation that Direct File continue indefinitely, the agency said it is “examining options to broaden” the system’s availability across the country, “including covering more tax situations and inviting all states to partner with Direct File next year.”

There will be “no limit” on the number of participating states in 2025, the IRS noted, and going forward, Direct File will expand “to support most common tax situations, with a particular focus on those situations that impact working families.”

Werfel said Direct File’s user experience, both within the product and in state-wide systems integrations, “will continue to be the foundation” for the program. 

“Accuracy and comprehensive tax credit uptake will be paramount concerns to ensure taxpayers file a correct return and get the refund they’re entitled to,” he said. “And our North Star will be improving the experience of tax filing itself and helping taxpayers meet their obligations as easily and quickly as possible.”

Though the agency touted positive user feedback in the weeks after the conclusion of the 2024 filing season, Direct File wasn’t without its critics. A Government Accountability Office report last month found that estimated start-up costs for the program were incomplete and “a comprehensive accounting” was needed if the pilot were to be continued and expanded. 

“A review by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that IRS had no documentation to support the underlying data, analysis, or assumptions used for Direct File cost estimates. We found this as well,” the GAO wrote. “Without collecting the information needed during the 2024 pilot to inform a comprehensive assessment of the costs associated with Direct File and its benefits, IRS risks making longer-term decisions without full information.”

The highly lucrative tax preparation industry has also been exceedingly critical of Direct File, calling the program “a solution in search of a problem” given other no-cost filing options. 

Those companies have sought to draw a contrast between the 140,000-plus Direct File pilot users and the millions that use their services each year. Derrick Plummer, an Intuit spokesperson, said in a statement to FedScoop that the company’s TurboTax program “has filed millions of completely free tax returns annually and has provided more than 124 million free tax returns over the past decade.”

Shortly after the Direct File announcement, Werfel made another move Thursday to bolster its taxpayer experience, naming Fumi Tamaki its chief taxpayer experience officer. Previously an adviser in the IRS Transformation and Strategy Office focused on “enterprisewide taxpayer journey improvement initiatives,” per an IRS announcement, Tamaki will now set the agency’s vision for continuously improving the taxpayer experience as part of the IRS’s larger digital transformation.

“This is a critical time for IRS, and I am excited to continue working with IRS leaders and our external partners in this role,” Tamaki said in a statement. “The Taxpayer Experience Office team and IRS have made tremendous strides in improving the taxpayer experience. I am committed to build on this work to deliver the experience that taxpayers expect and deserve.”

Billy Mitchell contributed to this article.

This story was updated May 30, 2024 with comments from an Intuit spokesperson.

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Scott Flanders, who will assume the permanent CIO position Sunday, is charged with managing and employing technology to enhance “information access and strengthen agency performance,” the NRC’s release states. Additionally, Flanders’s office is also charged with overseeing cyber and information security, data management, artificial intelligence and more.

Flanders “has risen through the ranks at the NRC over many years and has been an outstanding member of the senior executive service since 2004,” Raymond Furstenau, NRC’s acting executive director for operations, said in the release. “His experience with the government’s use of information technology and his deep understanding of the NRC mission will help the agency navigate the challenges of the future.”

As deputy CIO, Flanders “planned, directed and oversaw resources” to ensure IT and information management systems’ delivery to support the agency’s goals and priorities, the NRC said. 

Flanders joined the NRC in 1991 as a reactor engineer intern, and later served in the agency’s Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards’ Division of Site Safety and Environmental Analysis and in the Office of New Reactors as the director, according to CIO.gov. Additionally, he served as the deputy director of the Division of Waste Management and Environment Review in the ONMSS.

Flanders takes over as NRC’s permanent IT chief  amid an internal push on artificial intelligence. A staff letter sent earlier this month recommended the agency follow an AI framework that outlines AI governance, hiring new talent, upskilling existing workers, maturing the commission’s data management program and allocating resources to support AI integration into IT infrastructure.

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While facial recognition, a type of  biometric validation, is commonly used with law enforcement agencies, GSA sees the Login.gov pilot as a way to further defend against sophisticated fraud and cyber threats. The work with tech equity experts will “incorporate learnings, as applicable” into the pilot, a GSA spokesperson said in an email to FedScoop, and comes after the agency conducted an equity study on remote identity proofing to “improve outreach practices, user testing and user experience for underserved communities in civic tech design.”

The goal of the upcoming pilot, which will run through the fall, is to evaluate overall user experience throughout the new workflow and to find where individuals become stuck or confused throughout the process so the “team can iteratively make improvements,” the agency spokesperson said.

“Login.gov is committed to leveraging best-in-class facial matching algorithms that, based on testing in controlled environments, have been shown to offer high-levels of accuracy in reduced algorithmic bias,” they added. 

The equity study on remote identity proofing included 4,000 participants, as of April, who were tasked with testing five different vendors for this technology. GSA plans to release a report with the results from the equity study in a peer-reviewed publication this year. 

GSA recently concluded a procurement process that expands the set of “identity vendors” that Login.gov has access to, the spokesperson said. The agency shared plans to evaluate how and when to integrate new solutions. 

“The general availability launch timing is not dependent on this integration process,” the spokesperson said. 

Candice Wright, director of the Government Accountability Office’s Science, Technology Assessment and Analytics team, said in an email to FedScoop that the GSA’s equity study on remote identity can assist the agency in ensuring that the biometric validation technology is “more accurate for all demographic groups.”

“The accuracy of biometric identification technologies is improving overall, but there are still issues with technologies that can perform less accurately for certain subgroups, such as people with darker skin,” Wright said, pointing to a recent GAO report that found comprehensive evaluations of technology as a key consideration to assist in addressing differential performance.

The biometric validation tool, the GSA spokesperson said, uses a “privacy-preserving” approach that compares a selfie that a user takes against their photo identification. The spokesperson emphasized that the data provided by the user is “protected by ensuring it will never be used for any purpose unrelated to verifying your identity” by Login.gov or the vendors with whom it works. 

Login.gov’s biometric technology will be provided by a commercial vendor that, according to the spokesperson, employs an algorithm that is considered proprietary but is one of the leading options as measured by the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT).

“Agencies could achieve more comprehensive testing by providing guidance to technology vendors so that they design their products in ways that support more standardized testing,” Wright said.

NIST’s test for vendors, which last year was split into the Face Recognition Technology Evaluation (FRTE) and Face Analysis Technology Evaluation (FATE), measures the performance of facial recognition tech as it is applied across a variety of applications, such as visa image verification, identification of child exploitation images and more. 

The GSA noted last month that the biometric validation technology is compliant with NIST’s digital identity guidelines for achieving “evidence-based remote identity verification” at the IAL2 level, or the standard that “introduces the need for either remote or physically-present identity proofing.”

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