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Nevada unemployment claimant says ID.me face check rejected him three times and locked him out, leaving him three weeks without benefits

ID.me, an identity-verification company used by at least 21 US states to check people claiming unemployment benefits, asks claimants to pass a facial recognition step that compares their face with a photo of the same person, such as a driving licence. In June 2021 Motherboard (VICE) reported that a gig economy worker in Las Vegas was suddenly cut off from his unemployment benefits in late March after ID.me failed to identify him. He said that when he held his phone in the instructed position the system rejected him three times without giving a reason and then locked him out. He said he tried ID.me's chat support many times and the state of Nevada sent him back to ID.me; after several weeks he posted a public criticism on Twitter, and the company contacted him and, after several more days, verified his identity. He said he went three weeks without his benefit and could not pay bills. ID.me's chief executive told Motherboard that its Face Match algorithms operate at about 99.9% efficacy, that failures are a problem with how people use the system rather than the technology, and that the company was unaware of eligible people unable to verify their identity. Motherboard said other claimants in several states described similar lockouts; those accounts are not counted here.

AI system
ID.me Face Match
ID.me
Occurred
Mar 2021
Reported
18 June 2021
Event location
United States
What the AI did
Made a decision about the person
Reported harm
Financial LossPsychological Distress
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Public services · Finance
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources
6 claims: 6 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: ID.me Face Match, a one-to-one facial recognition step in ID.me's identity verification for state unemployment benefit claimants, as described by Motherboard and ID.me's chief executive

Reported harm

The claimant says ID.me's face check rejected him three times and locked him out, cutting off his unemployment benefit; he says he went three weeks without it, could not pay bills, and spent weeks trying to reach ID.me and the state before the company verified him. He describes the experience as ridiculous.

Outcome

Resolved

Motherboard reports that ID.me contacted the claimant after his public complaint and, after several more days, verified his identity. ID.me's chief executive attributed face-match failures to users' photos, and in a statement to Engadget the company called parts of Motherboard's reporting inaccurate and repeated its account of the facial recognition system and its video chat backup. No payment of the missed weeks or other remedy is reported.

What remains unknown

  • The exact dates of the lockout and of the verification; Motherboard gives only late March and three weeks without the benefit.
  • Why the face match failed in this case: no analysis of the attempts is reported, and ID.me attributes failures in general to users' photos.
  • Whether the missed benefit weeks were later paid.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. Motherboard and ID.me's chief executive describe ID.me Face Match as a facial recognition step that compares a claimant's face with the photo on an identity document. The claimant says that step rejected his face three times and locked him out of the system, which cut off his unemployment benefit, and that ID.me later verified him as the same person after his public complaint. The rejection of a person the company later verified is the system's own failed match. ID.me's chief executive says such failures come from users' photos; the cause in this case is not established.

6 claims: 6 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported ID.me verifies the identity of people claiming unemployment benefits in at least 21 US states, using biometric information and official documents, including a facial recognition step that compares one face with a picture of that same face, such as from a driving licence.

Causal attribution. Motherboard's description and ID.me's chief executive's account of the system.

  • vice.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    which uses a combination of biometric information and official documents to confirm that applicants are who they claim to be.; ID.me CEO Blake Hall told Motherboard that the company’s facial recognition technology does one-to-one matching—comparing one face against a picture of that same face (from a driver’s license, say); At least 21 states use ID.me to detect fraudulent benefit claims.
Reported A gig economy worker in Las Vegas says he was suddenly cut off from his unemployment benefits in late March 2021 after ID.me failed to identify him; he says the facial recognition test rejected him three times without giving a reason and then locked him out of the system.

Causal attribution. The claimant's account to Motherboard; the year comes from the article's date of 18 June 2021.

  • vice.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    a gig economy worker in Las Vegas who was suddenly cut off from his unemployment benefits in late March after ID.me failed to identify him.; it rejected it, didn’t give us a reason, just rejected it. It rejected it three times, and then it locked me out of the system.
Reported The claimant says ID.me's chat support did not resolve the problem despite many attempts and the state of Nevada directed him back to ID.me; after several weeks he posted a public criticism, and the company contacted him and, after several more days, verified his identity.

Causal attribution. The claimant's account as reported by Motherboard.

  • vice.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    He tried contacting the state of Nevada for help, but the employees there directed him back to ID.me.; until he tweeted a scathing criticism of the company, which then reached out and—after several more frustrating days—verified
Reported The claimant says he went three weeks without his benefit and could not pay bills.

Causal attribution. The claimant's own statement to Motherboard.

Reported ID.me's chief executive told Motherboard that its Face Match algorithms operate at about 99.9% efficacy, that face-match failures are a problem with the people using the system rather than the technology, and that the company was unaware of eligible individuals unable to verify their identity.

Causal attribution. ID.me's response, kept as counterevidence; Engadget relays the same statement.

  • vice.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    “The algorithms used for Face Match operate ~99.9% efficacy,” Hall wrote in an email to Motherboard.; Hall said that facial recognition failures are not a problem with the technology but with the people using it to verify their identity.; “We are unaware of eligible individuals who have not been able to verify their identity with ID.me,”
  • engadget.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    ID.me chief Blake Hall blamed the problems on users rather than the technology. Face Match algorithms have "99.9% efficacy,
Reported In a response to Engadget, ID.me called Motherboard's fraud claims inaccurate and defamatory and repeated its account of the facial recognition system and its video chat backup.

Causal attribution. ID.me's statement to Engadget.

  • engadget.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    ID.me unsurprisingly took issue with the Motherboard piece in a response provided to Engadget. Hall called the fraud claims "inaccurate and defamatory," and stressed that the company suck to National Institute of Standards and Technology standards for identification. He reiterated the claims made about the nature of the facial recognition system and the video chat backup

Sources

2 sources inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in English on 2026-10-30; no translation. Applies to s1, s2.

Event countries: United States. Affected-person countries: United States. Court countries: Unknown.

The benefits were Nevada unemployment benefits: the claimant says he sought help from the state of Nevada, which sent him back to ID.me. Motherboard describes him as a gig economy worker in Las Vegas.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-30: Published as a state unemployment system's facial recognition identity check rejecting a described claimant three times and locking him out, which he says stopped his benefit for three weeks until the company verified him. His account is attributed; ID.me's explanation that failures come from users is recorded.

People described

A gig economy worker in Las Vegas receiving Nevada unemployment benefits in 2021, who described the lockout to Motherboard

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

One claimant describes being rejected by the face check and losing benefits. Motherboard says other claimants in several states complained of similar problems but gives no count tied to the face check, so they are not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#id-me#facial-recognition#unemployment-benefits#identity-verification#public-services#nevada

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Nevada unemployment claimant says ID.me face check rejected him three times and locked him out, leaving him three weeks without benefits. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2021-nevada-unemployment-claimant-says-id-me-face-check-rejected-him-and-locked-him-out-of-benefits

BibTeX

@misc{2021_nevada_unemployment_claimant_says_id_me_face_check_rejected_him_and_locked_him_out_of_benefits,
  title = {Nevada unemployment claimant says ID.me face check rejected him three times and locked him out, leaving him three weeks without benefits},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2021-nevada-unemployment-claimant-says-id-me-face-check-rejected-him-and-locked-him-out-of-benefits}
}

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