The 2017 Equifax security breach has thrown a wrench in the process used by US government agencies to verify the identity of US citizens applying for various benefits via its online portals.
This process, called online identity verification or remote identity proofing, relied on data provided by credit reporting agencies (CRAs) like Equifax, as a proof of the applicant’s identity.
Government systems or workers would verify data provided by a US citizen against a private CRA database, like the one maintained by Equifax, or they’d ask citizens questions about data that was present in their Equifax credit report.
