The controversial facial recognition firm hired by the US government during the height of the pandemic is being slammed by members of Congress, who say the company misrepresented how its technology works and downplayed excessive wait times which stopped Americans from collecting unemployment benefits.The report also said that ID.me—which received $45 million in COVID relief funds from at least 25 state agencies—misrepresented the excessively long wait times it forced on people trying to claim emergency benefits like unemployment insurance and Child Tax Credit payments.“Any assertion that we made a claim about fraud to advance our business omits the fact that 43 agencies chose ID.me before the statement was ever made,” Hall wrote in a post on LinkedIn, referring to the company’s previous claims about insurance fraud.Excluding specific episodes, wait times have generally been below 30 minutes as they are today.”The IRS and other government agencies said they would stop using ID.me earlier this year after widespread backlash from benefits recipients and politicians.“Not only does this violate individuals’ privacy, but the inevitable false matches associated with one-to-many recognition can result in applicants being wrongly denied desperately-needed services for weeks or even months as they try to get their case reviewed,” the letter stated."