来源：《华盛顿邮报》
原文刊登日期：2022年2月6日
The Internal Revenue Service might soon force every American who wants to access their taxes online to record a selfie of themselves and submit to facial recognition to verify their identity. The IRS wants to start this extra verification procedure this summer. That would be a mistake. This cannot be the only way to access an account online.
美国国税局可能很快就会迫使每一个想要在网上查税单的美国人都拍一张自己的自拍照，然后提交给人脸识别系统以验证身份。国税局想在今年夏天开始这个额外的验证程序。那将是一个错误。这不应该是访问网上账户的唯一途径。
Requiring facial recognition could prevent a substantial number of people from accessing their accounts. Low-income Americans often lack the necessary technology. There are equally serious concerns about privacy and what will happen to the potentially more than 100 million selfies the IRS will collect.
要求进行人脸识别可能会妨碍大量用户访问他们的账户。低收入的美国人往往缺乏网络访问必要的技术设备。对于隐私以及国税局将收集的可能超过1亿张的自拍照片会发生什么，同样令人担忧。
Cutting down on fraud is a worthy goal, but facial recognition should not be introduced so swiftly without clear guardrails around the data. The IRS hired a private company, ID.me, to handle the facial verification system. While the company promises not to do anything with the data beyond share taxpayers’ selfies with authorities if a fraud issue comes up, there is no federal law regulating how this sensitive information can be used. And let’s not forget that hackers exposed the personal information of more than 140 million Americans when they broke into Equifax — itself once an IRS verification company. If hackers were able to obtain the ID.me selfie records, it could be especially damaging, with potential uses ranging from committing fraud and identity theft to blackmailing people — or the company.
减少欺诈是一个有价值的目标，但人脸识别不应该在数据没有明确防范的情况下如此迅速地推出。国税局雇佣了一家私人公司，ID.me，来处理人脸识别系统。虽然该公司承诺，如果出现欺诈问题，除了向官方分享纳税人的自拍外，不会对这些数据做任何处理，但目前还没有联邦法律规定如何使用这些敏感信息。我们也不要忘记，黑客入侵Equifax时泄露了超过1.4亿美国人的个人信息，Equifax曾经是一家美国国税局雇用的身份验证公司。如果黑客能够获得ID.me自拍记录，那么它的破坏性可能会特别大，其潜在用途包括欺诈和身份盗窃，以及勒索他人或公司。
Some try to compare what the IRS wants to do to people using Face ID to unlock their cellphone. But there’s a big difference between the two. First, it is not a requirement to use facial recognition to unlock an Apple iPhone. People get to opt in, and there are clear and easy alternatives, such as using a passcode. Second, Apple is very clear that your facial image “doesn’t leave your device.” Apple is not storing it anywhere, nor is Apple checking it against a bigger database of images in the way ID.me describes.
一些人试图将美国国税局的做法与使用iPhone的Face-ID解锁手机进行比较。但两者之间有很大的区别。首先，解锁苹果iPhone手机并不强制使用人脸识别。这只是一个选项，而且有清晰而简单的替代方案，比如使用密码。其次，苹果非常清楚，你的面部图像“不会离开你的设备”。苹果不会将其存储在任何地方，也没有像ID.me所描述的那样，将其与更大的人脸数据库进行比对。
It’s true that someone could still file a paper return or mail in a letter about their tax account. But the reality is more than 152 million tax returns were filed online last year. The IRS has been urging people not only to file online but also to use the IRS website to check the status of their return, their refund, their child tax credit and more due to a massive backlog in processing paper returns. IRS call centers have been equally useless, answering only 1 in 10 calls last tax season.
的确，人们仍然可以提交纸质申报单或用信件邮寄他们的税务账户。但事实是，去年网上提交的纳税申报单超过1.52亿份。美国国税局一直在敦促人们不仅要网络申报，还要使用美国国税局的网站检查他们的申报单、退款、子女税收抵免等状况，因为处理纸质申报单的工作已经大量积压。国税局的呼叫中心同样毫无用处，在上个纳税季，只有十分之一的电话被接听。
There have been encouraging reports that the IRS is reconsidering its sole reliance on ID.me for online verification for website access. At a minimum, the IRS must offer other verification options and clearly articulate guidelines on what happens to all facial data. The government is already warning of “enormous challenges” this tax filing season. Rushing into facial recognition is likely to make them worse.
有令人鼓舞的报道称，美国国税局正在重新考虑是否只依赖ID.me进行网站访问的在线验证。至少，IRS必须提供其他验证选项，并明确说明所有人脸数据的处理方法。政府已经警告称，在这个报税季将面临“巨大挑战”。仓促进行人脸识别可能会让情况变得更糟。