The US’ tax collection agency, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), has changed course with its short-lived identity verification system that was only recently implemented. Last November, the vendor ID.me was awarded a $86 million contract to provide the exclusive authentication for all online IRS accounts. Until then, the IRS had its own account authentication service that was based on credit reporting data. The older system was to be phased out this summer.

This week, things came to a head and the IRS decided to ditch their ID.me solution. I describe the chain of events, why ID.me was such a lightning rod, and what are some ways that they can gain some traction and show leadership in the decentralized identity space in my latest blog for Avast here.