The federal government is opening up its face recognition capabilities across all agencies

After months of testing, the federal government’s identity proofing and single sign-on service, Login.gov, is opening up its face recognition capabilities across the government to agencies that want to use them.

The General Services Administration says that the offering of one-to-one face matching has been independently certified as compliant with a government-backed standard for digital identity proofing set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, called identity assurance level two. 

Federal agencies use Login.gov for people to verify their identities when logging in to access government benefits and services. The offering has over 100 million users already across over 50 federal and state agencies, and this news could affect how future users have to verify their identity to access information and benefits. 

“Proving your identity is a critical step in receiving many government benefits and services, and we want to ensure we are making that as easy and secure as possible for members of the public, while protecting against identity theft and fraud,” said GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan in a statement.