One New Jersey man obtained multiple 'verified’ ID.me accounts after submitting 'selfies’ in which he wore a cartoonish wig. He allegedly used the accounts to file false unemployment claims that paid him $900,000.

A private company that government agencies have used to verify the identities of millions of Americans through facial recognition used a variety of other data techniques to screen users, including collecting people’s phone location records and using software from the data-mining company Palantir to assess whether they have ties to “organized crime.”

But despite the scale of the data gathering by the company, ID.me, revealed in newly released records, the system has been exploited by scammers. Federal prosecutors last month said a New Jersey man was able to verify fake driver’s licenses through an ID.me system in California as part of a $2.5 million unemployment-fraud scheme.

ID.me has pointed to the scam as an example of how well its systems work, noting that it referred the case to federal law enforcement after an internal investigation. But the criminal complaint in the case shows that ID.me’s identification systems did not detect bogus accounts created around the same day that included fake driver’s licenses with photos of the suspect’s face in a cartoonish curly wig.

An ID.me spokesman declined to explain how the suspect was able to win approval for fraudulent accounts and referred other questions to the Justice Department.

The company said in a statement...

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