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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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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Kim has served as the website’s first deputy director since January following a five-year stint at Amazon, where she developed “cutting-edge AI-based technology to scale policy enforcement,” per a GSA email. Kim previously worked across the federal government, serving with the departments of State, Treasury and Defense.

Dan Lopez-Braus, the outgoing director of Login.gov, will transition into a senior adviser position with TTS. 

TTS Director Ann Lewis said in a statement that Kim “will lead the team to implement the recently-announced launch of an optimized pricing structure and a new pilot for selfie-based identity verification, both of which will empower even more agencies and programs to use Login.gov to benefit people nationwide.” 

The news of Kim’s appointment follows an announcement from Login.gov earlier this month that it will pilot biometric technology for identity verification. The tool would allow users to take a “selfie” as a complementary feature to the site’s efforts to protect against identity fraud attempts and cyberattacks. 

A Government Accountability Office report released Monday listed Login.gov as a federal government use case for biometric identification. The congressional watchdog said the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration use it for identity verification for members of the public to access websites and services. 

The GAO issued five recommendations for policymakers to address concerns regarding biometric technology: conducting comprehensive evaluations to provide more information about the effects of biometric tech, enacting privacy laws or guidance, offering tech users additional training and guidance on how they might select and use the biometric technology appropriately, more widespread information-sharing about the tech, and applying a “risk-based” approach in the development of regulations and guidance. 

Biometric identification tech varies in “accuracy for different populations,” the GAO stated, but  there have been advances over the past four years that have led to notable improvements.

Correction: Due to an editing error, Kim was initially identified as a deputy director for TTS rather than deputy director of TTS’ Login.gov.

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GSA said in a release that the pilot will offer users the ability to match a “live selfie” with a self-supplied form of photo identification like a driver’s license. The agency said it will not use images “for any purpose other than verifying identity,” and reaffirmed the platform’s commitment to user privacy. 

This effort comes after the agency’s previous notice of Login.gov’s plans to use an evidence-based identity verification system that follows National Institute of Standards and Technology guidelines. GSA said at the time that the offering of biometric identification would “complement Login.gov’s already strong anti-fraud capabilities” and protect against sophisticated identity fraud attempts and cyberattacks.

Technology Transformation Services Director Ann Lewis said in the new release that GSA looks forward “to soon launching this new identity verification pathway for our agency customers that will protect user data, prevent fraud, and align with IAL2 guidelines — all while doubling down on our strong commitment to privacy, accessibility, and security.”

The GSA said the pilot will begin with interested agency partners and will look to add others over the summer. 

GSA also noted that it expects to complete an independent, third-party assessment of IAL2 compliance later this year.

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The disclosure, published to the Federal Register last month, states that CBP is introducing a new biometric capability into the app that’s meant to accelerate the Department of Homeland Security’s effort to collect biometric information from nonimmigrants leaving the country, requiring a “selfie” photo with geolocation tracking to confirm that they’ve actually departed. The update is also intended to decrease travel document fraud and improve the agency’s “ability to identify criminals and known or suspected terrorists.”

The app’s update would allow nonimmigrants who are departing the U.S. to “voluntarily provide biographical data, facial images and geolocation,” a step that aligns with a Department of Homeland Security mandate to collect biometric information and support CBP’s plan to fully automate I-94 collection. Individuals are subject to Form I-94 if they are nonimmigrant U.S. visitors; CBP issues I-94 forms to individuals at the time that they “lawfully enter” the U.S., serving as an arrival and departure record.

“Having proof of an exit via the CBP One app would provide nonimmigrants some information for CBP officers to consider in the event the officer is unsure whether a nonimmigrant complied with the I-94 requirements provided upon their previous entry,” the notice reads. 

Additionally, CBP stated its intention to update the Electronic System for Travel Authorization website to require applicants to provide a selfie along with the already required passport biographical page photo. 

The new disclosure also mentions a “liveness detection” feature that’s meant to confirm that the photo is recent and not an older photo. That information, according to the Federal Register posting, is supposed to be filed in the Arrival and Departure Information System, a travel history database that CBP is pushing to expand, according to a privacy impact assessment for the platform. 

The CBP One expansion comes after the agency in September announced plans to utilize the technology before someone arrives in the United States. That information, according to the disclosure, is supposed to be shared with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and air carriers working with CBP’s document validation initiative. In this case, photos sent to the app are, for instance, scanned with a facial recognition algorithm and uploaded to a Traveler Verification System gallery and the Automated Targeting System, which is used to compare traveler information to other law enforcement data, according to a privacy impact assessment published at the beginning of last year.

“Noncitizens are able to use the CBP One mobile application to schedule an appointment at one of seven Southwest Border [ports of entry] and present themselves for inspection to a CBP officer,” Benjamine “Carry” Huffman, then-acting deputy commissioner at CBP, said during a border-focused House hearing last year. “The ability to use the app cuts out the smugglers, decreases migrant exploitation, and makes processing more efficient upon arrival at the [ports of entry].” 

After publication of this story, and more than two weeks after FedScoop reached out for comment, a CBP spokesperson said in an email that the app digitally serves travelers who need to interact with the agency, and permits them to do things such as provide advance notice of the import of biological materials, apply and pay for an I-94 document, and schedule perishable cargo exams.

Additionally, migrants located in Central or North Mexico who do not have sufficient admission documentation can make an appointment and remain in place until presenting for their appointment. This cuts down on migrant crowding in immediate border areas, according to the spokesperson. 

The app’s appointment scheduling functionality, according to the spokesperson, has increased CBP’s capacity to process migrants and cut down on bad actors who could endanger and take advantage of vulnerable migrants.

The purpose of this system, according to the agency’s September posting, is to confirm the identity of someone entering the U.S. and to run that information against potential criminal databases. That disclosure also noted new CBP One applications for certain nationals of countries like Haiti and Colombia, as well as a new program for Ukrainians.

Yet the CBP disclosure from late February is new in that it applies biometrics to those exiting the United States, rather than those entering. Though no time frame is specified, the posting puts the number of respondents expected to use the CBP One in the hundreds of thousands. This expansion only adds to concerns held by immigration rights groups.  

“We are concerned about the ever-expanding surveillance capabilities and requirements that CBP is adding to CBP One. With little notice or oversight, CBP has expanded biometric and geolocation surveillance to individuals not even in the U.S.,” Julie Mao, the co-founder and deputy director of Just Futures Law, a legal organization that focuses on immigrant rights, said in an email to FedScoop. 

She continued: “What business and for that matter legal authority does CBP have to conduct such biometrics and geolocation capture outside the U.S.? This is part of DHS’s disturbing and unchecked externalization of U.S. immigration policy, and therefore surveillance, to other countries.” 

The app has previously come under fire for its technical capabilities. Amnesty International said that mandatory use of CBP One violates peoples’ right to pursue asylum, pointing to risks related to privacy, discrimination, and surveillance. The National Immigration Project and the immigrant rights group Together & Free have also documented the difficulties faced by those who are unable to book an appointment through the app. 

Reviews on two of the most prominent app stores, the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, also show people pointing to technical issues with the CBP One app. For instance, one person complained in January that the app only works for people with modern Android phones, making it difficult for people in Cuba to use. Another review, posted in December, noted issues with the app’s software not recognizing their face; the CBP spokesperson told FedScoop that this is related to issues in the USCIS system that someone might need to correct before they’re able to move forward in the app. Other complaints note that the app freezes or posts error messages. 

There are other concerns about the app’s technical abilities, particularly surrounding AI. A letter from Human Rights Watch to several entities within DHS warned that the app’s liveness detection “does not always work for asylum seekers with darker skin tones.”  

“CBP’s use of photo recognition to access these features is of concern, particularly in light of the issues we saw when CBP One first launched,” said Raul Pinto, deputy legal director for transparency at the American Immigration Council, which does extensive work looking at the CBP One app. “At that point, there were numerous reports that racial minorities had trouble accessing certain functions of the app.”

In response to FedScoop’s questions, an agency spokesperson said on March 12 that the app no longer receives time-out errors and also resolved bandwidth issues with a third-party provider within weeks. The agency also confirmed that devices using CBP One app appointments need to meet certain RAM requirements and operating system requirements for Android and iOS. 

Additionally, CBP said that biometric traveler verification service matching has a match rate of 99.4% on entry and 98.1% on exit, and that between 2017 and 2022, people using the system from African countries in had a 99.5% match rate, while people coming from Central American countries had a 99.6% match rate. 

Notably, the current status of the liveness detection feature appears to be inaccurately described in DHS’s AI inventory,which the agency has updated several times within the past year. In that inventory, CBP says the tool uses a selfie and artificial intelligence algorithms, and specifically, machine vision, to confirm that it is a live picture and “not a photo, mask, or other spoofing mechanism.” The tool is still listed in the development and acquisition phase, even though DHS already appears to be using it. CBP did not respond to a question about the discrepancy. 

The app is facing several investigations within DHS, including from its Office of Inspector General, which is currently looking into the use of CBP One on the Southwestern border. When asked about the status of that investigation, the OIG office said that it was ongoing and that, upon completion, results would be published to its website.

Meanwhile, the DHS’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is also conducting an investigation into difficulties faced by migrants using the app, though it declined to comment. And the Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights, which had sent concerns to the DHS civil rights office, said they were aware of changes to the app but had otherwise not heard an update from DHS.

The new updates to the app come amid ongoing discussions on the Hill about the Biden administration’s broader approach to immigration policy. Some Democrats have argued for increased funding for the app to boost its technology, while others have criticized the app, including Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. who called the way it’s been deployed “inherently discriminatory.” 

Congressional Republicans have also criticized CBP One — but for different reasons. Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a release last October that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “has utterly abused the CBP One app in his quest for open borders.”  

Editor’s note: This piece was updated on March 14 to include comments and background from CBP, which responded after publication. 

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The House Committee on Small Businesses hosted a hearing Wednesday morning with private-sector leaders to discuss recovering stolen pandemic loan funds and establishing safeguards against digital fraud in the event of another national emergency. 

While the amount of money lost to fraudulent actors is contested — argued to be a range of amounts up to $36 billion and more than $400 billion — committee members looked to identity verification and biometrics technology that agencies like the Small Business Administration used that were not effective during the pandemic, as well as how bad actors used stolen information to commit fraud. 

Industry leaders offered solutions to fight digital fraud, which included presentation attack detection (PAD), to defend against those trying to enter online platforms with masks or computer-generated images that try to trick biometric verification processes. Other witnesses spoke to the data that was stolen and used in order to steal the identities of other small businesses. 

“I want to show you the actual log-ins that our vendors accepted as real people,” Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., said during the meeting, displaying various pictures of dolls that were used for biometric verification in order to acquire government loans meant for small businesses. 

ID.me, an online platform to help prevent fraud and abuse, uses software to detect false presentations in biometric verification. Such technology could be used in the future in order to prevent fraudulent behavior, but it wasn’t employed throughout the pandemic to assist in protecting small business funds.

J.T. Taylor, senior director of fraud investigations and operations at ID.me, identified the images that Bean presented as “masks” that were able to get through online platforms to commit fraud. Taylor stated that through biometric verification software ID.me uses, this could have been prevented and has been used to detect fraud. 

“We stopped these at the gate and you can see [those committing fraud] got through various platforms,” Taylor said in an interview. “The way that it does that is it’s looking for depth cues as well as pixelation. That [PAD] is a software, and then we run that in the verification platform servers.”

While biometric verification has been offered as support for agencies that are trying to defend against fraud, Linda Miller, founder and CEO of Audient Group, said that stolen information was used most widely to commit fraud. 

“It’s important to note that identity theft plays a role in loan fraud, but it was not the largest driver of fraud,” Miller said during the hearing. “Front-end identity verification technology including remote biometrics is but one tool in [Small Business Administration’s] toolset, and it is by no means a panacea,” 

Miller reported that those who successfully committed fraud created “shell companies” that used information stolen from other small businesses in order to apply for loans, a process that is only uncovered through conducting “due diligence” on the information from the loan applications. She said the Small Business Administration now has safeguards in order to prevent from this level of fraud occurring again.

“They now require tax transcripts of loan applicants, they use vendor information to verify a bank account and they flag certain…prefixes, none of which was done during the start of the pandemic,” Miller said. 

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The app’s functionality for advance travel authorization (ATA), linked to biometric information provided by noncitizens seeking to obtain permission to fly directly to the U.S., will soon include Ukrainians.

This revision is part of a step for Uniting for Ukraine, a commitment from the Biden administration to temporarily welcome Ukrainian citizens and others who are fleeing Russian invasion and aggression, according to a Federal Register notice by CBP released on Wednesday. 

“This process allows Ukrainian citizens and their qualifying family members the ability to submit certain personal information to USCIS and CBP to facilitate the issuance of an advanced authorization to travel to the United States to seek parole,” the notice states.

CBP One’s biometric collection is limited to a live, facial photograph, but it will be updated to include the physical location at the time of submission. This collection is to determine if an individual seeking a discretionary grant of parole at the port of entry is eligible for ATA.

“This data element will further secure the submission process and provide accurate identity information for completion of vetting in advance of a travel authorization,” CBP wrote in the notice.

This feature in the app has also been used for individuals seeking travel to the U.S. in regions such as Haiti, Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Cuba as part of the Family Reunification Parole process. 

The application also collects another photo from the individual’s passport, along with additional information including an alien registration number and passport number.

While CBP operates the app and allows individuals to submit their biometric information for advance travel authorization using it, it does so in partnership with sister agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which issues and approves Form I–134A ensuring noncitizens have financial support for their stay in the U.S.

The CBP is requesting comments for these updates from the public and from affected agencies over the next 60 days.

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The DHS Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM) has however promised to incorporate its full actual costs in the next annual update to the HART Life Cycle Cost Estimate for fiscal year 2022 which it provided in May 2023, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) study released Wednesday. 

“The Secretary of DHS should direct the Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM) Director to ensure that, moving forward, the Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) program tracks and monitors all of its costs, including government labor costs,” the GAO report titled ‘Priority Open Recommendations: Department of Homeland Security’ said.

The biometrics system is one of DHS’ major IT programs that has taken much longer than expected to become fully functional since it began in 2016 and has had persistent risk management issues in the past few years.

Begun in 2016, HART was expected to cost $5.8 billion all told and provide additional biometric services, a web portal, and analysis and reporting tools by 2021. 

DHS agreed with GAO’s recommendation and said future HART program Life Cycle Cost Estimates will include government labor costs which the GAO will assess to determine whether the program is accurately tracking and monitoring all costs in an attempt to ensure the program doesn’t face further schedule delays or ballooning costs. 

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The agency noted the findings in details of its equity action plan, made public Thursday, and said it had identified algorithmic discrimination as one of two high-priority barriers faced by historically and socially disadvantaged users of government digital services.

“Widely adopted biometric-detection systems used to verify identity for access to government services often have disproportionately high false rejection rates for African Americans and other people of color because facial recognition and other machine learning technologies are trained on biased, non-exhaustive datasets,” the agency said.

GSA said its own testing of “major commercial implementations of facial matching” found similar problems.

Details of the findings come amid a wider debate about the use of platforms that use powerful facial recognition technology by federal government agencies.

Earlier this year, CyberScoop revealed that the ID.me platform uses Amazon’s Rekognition facial recognition product. The Internal Revenue Service subsequently agreed to abandon the use of a commercial tool that featured third-party facial recognition technology and committed to Login.gov as a user authentication tool.

In addition to addressing algorithmic discrimination, GSA in its plan also identified the prioritization of universal design and usability beyond compliance as a core priority. According to the agency, many government applications and websites lack sufficient support to meet adequate accessibility standards and assistive technologies. “Users who are disproportionately affected are those with visual, mobility, and cognitive impairments,” it said.

GSA’s new plan executes on the executive order issued by the White House at the start of 2021, which mandated that agencies use the resources of federal government to improve racial equity and further engage with underserved communities. 

GSA’s findings on algorithmic discrimination are consistent with earlier work conducted by the National Institute of Science and Technology that identified areas of key concerns with the commercially available technology.

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The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity awarded Biometric Recognition & Identification at Altitude and Range (BRIAR) research contracts to seven teams and more-focused research contracts to two more.

Software systems developed by the BRIAR program will be used by the intelligence community and Pentagon to identify people from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) even in turbulence.

“National security technologies must accurately and reliably operate under conditions that are extremely difficult for existing biometric technologies to succeed in,” said Program Manager Lars Ericson, in the announcement. “I am confident that our excellent team of research organizations, scientists and engineers will push the research forward and build technologies that are significantly ahead of the current state of the art.”

Teams that won BRIAR research contracts are: Accenture Federal Services LLC; Intelligent Automation, Inc.; Kitware, Inc.; Michigan State University; Systems & Technology Research, the University of Houston; and the University of Southern California.

Carnegie Mellon University and General Electric Research won focused research contracts that will support the BRIAR program.

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory; National Institute of Standards and Technology; and the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command C5ISR Center, Research and Technology Integration Directorate will perform testing and evaluation for the program.

IARPA invests in high-risk research with the potential to greatly benefit the intelligence community.

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