BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho Department of Labor is ramping up security for Idahoans and ensuring their private information is safe.
The department is partnering with a company called ID.me for an extra step in preventing fraud.
It is estimated that scammers have gotten away with $36 billion in unemployment benefits throughout the nation.
The department didn't have a specific figure for Idaho, but said they want to make sure that money only goes to who really needs it.
“It’s an extra step in the claim process, but overall, it’s our opinion that the claims will get processed faster,” said Larry Ingram, unemployment insurance compliance bureau chief.
The point of the partnership is to make sure others are not filing claims using someone else’s identity.
“They verify an individual's identity based upon credentials the individual will upload along with some knowledge-based authentication,” Ingram said.
This creates an extra step to make sure the person filing the claim is really them.
“Our position all along is to only pay benefits when benefits are due,” Ingram said.
Claims have gone up this past year because of the pandemic, and with that comes more fraud.
“Fraud is up throughout this whole pandemic, fraud is extremely high,” Ingram said. “The amount of imposter fraud is extremely high.”
The fraud was worst in the late summer and into fall, before starting to see a dip in winter. Even with the decrease, they want to make sure the people filing the claim are the ones indeed getting it.
ID.me provides extra security by acting as a two-factor authentication.
“They ask the individual to upload their credentials like their driver's license and other types of government ID's,” Ingram said. “Also go ahead and ask them knowledge-based questions that only that individual should know.”
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