ID.me sucks for U.S. people
Sep. 5th, 2026 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amalthiaToday I made the mistake of trying to setup the id.me so I can log into Treasury Direct, because next month you can no longer log in with the original credentials used for the site.
After an hour of trying to set this up, my account was suspended.
I had to switch browsers on my phone from FireFox to Chrome, clear my cache so I could receive text message with link, and just when I thought things were working I took too many selfies and they suspended my account. I'm not sure what went wrong with the selfie, maybe not enough light, or bad angle for my face they didn't say and they didn't tell me there was a limit. Otherwise, I would have stopped and switched to the video call option. If I don't get this fixed in the next two months I won't be able to log into any of the government services that are now requiring id.me verification.
My recommendation for anyone starting out, is to skip the doing it yourself and opt for the video call, though prepare for plenty of time, on reddit some users are reporting waiting for hours.
What really bugs me though is finding out id.me isn't even a government service website, it's a 3rd party contractor that the United States Government paid to perform online identity verification.
I personally think it's a VERY bad idea to put all the ID eggs in one basket for cyber-criminals (or government criminals) to target. But what do I know about data security beyond reading about all the hacked databases with user information stolen on a monthly basis.
After an hour of trying to set this up, my account was suspended.
I had to switch browsers on my phone from FireFox to Chrome, clear my cache so I could receive text message with link, and just when I thought things were working I took too many selfies and they suspended my account. I'm not sure what went wrong with the selfie, maybe not enough light, or bad angle for my face they didn't say and they didn't tell me there was a limit. Otherwise, I would have stopped and switched to the video call option. If I don't get this fixed in the next two months I won't be able to log into any of the government services that are now requiring id.me verification.
My recommendation for anyone starting out, is to skip the doing it yourself and opt for the video call, though prepare for plenty of time, on reddit some users are reporting waiting for hours.
What really bugs me though is finding out id.me isn't even a government service website, it's a 3rd party contractor that the United States Government paid to perform online identity verification.
I personally think it's a VERY bad idea to put all the ID eggs in one basket for cyber-criminals (or government criminals) to target. But what do I know about data security beyond reading about all the hacked databases with user information stolen on a monthly basis.