Feb 8, 2021 / 08:13 PM EST
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) The state hired
ID.me in October to verify people’s identities before they file for unemployment benefits.
The goal was to cut down on unemployment fraud.
Blake Hall, the chief executive officer of ID.me, said Monday that it is working as fast as it can on Indiana’s needs. A handful of News 8 viewers have cited problems with getting their identifications verified as a primary issue when applying for jobless benefits during the coronavirus pandemic.
Hall said, “When you talk about workforce agencies, about 90% of the users who verify their claims will go through in real time and that process takes about 5 minutes. The other 10% or so might have to go into video chat to upload documents and that could be for folks who don’t have any credit history, or they don’t have a phone, any kind of tenure. These checks are very, very important to make sure there aren’t organized crime rings that are just taking personal d
The Indiana Department of Workforce Development began processing new applications for federal pandemic unemployment aid last week after a month-long pause, according to the agency and data from the latest federal report.
In the week that ended Jan. 30, in all 10,410 Hoosiers applied for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which was created to help self-employed people who are out of work with an additional $300 a week in stimulus payments, according to the U.S. Department of Laborâs Thursday report.
Since the funding from initial pandemic relief package, the CARES Act, ended last year and a second relief bill passed to continue benefits, the state agency charged with distributing federal unemployment aid stopped payments as they reviewed new rules.
“We’ve noticed a huge return on investment with ID.me in the past few months,” Craven added.
Hall, whose identity verification service is now used by 14 state unemployment agencies and the federal government, told 13News his company has helped states save billions of dollars since the start of the pandemic. That figure is based on the numbers of bogus claims identified and fraudulent payouts thwarted.
The ID.me executive said the verification process has caught scammers trying to hold up a photo of someone else in an effort to fraudulently pass an identification screening. It regularly detects con artists trying to submit an unemployment claim for a U.S. citizen while they are using a computer or cell phone thousands of miles away in foreign countries. And the verification process quickly flags accounts that change a cell phone number or bank account number immediately after passing verification.
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