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IRS Requiring Selfies for Access to New Online Tools: Report

While selfies occasionally have professional uses, like work photos, most of us take them for more personal reasons. As it turns out, if you plan on accessing new online tools the IRS is providing, you’ll need to work on your selfie game.

CNBC shared the news, saying you need to provide a selfie to a third-party identity verification company, ID.me, to access online IRS tools. The requirement kicks in this summer. This means if you want to use the website to access the Child Tax Credit Update Portal, get your tax transcript, or view a payment agreement, you need to make an account with ID.me. In addition to a username, password, and a government document with a photo, you need a video selfie. The selfie video can be taken with either your phone or a computer.

For those who already created an IRS account, it will work until the summer. However, you will at some point be required to create the ID.me account. For those wondering, an IRS spokesperson said this is not a requirement to file your tax return. “The IRS emphasizes taxpayers can pay or file their taxes without submitting a selfie or other information to a third-party identity verification company,” the agency stated. “Tax payments can be made from a bank account, by credit card or by other means without the use of facial recognition technology or registering for an account.”

Nonetheless, it may be in your best interest to make an account. Besides some of the things already listed, other tasks require access to the online tools. For instance, this includes applying for payment plans, monitoring stimulus checks, and requesting Identity Protection PINs.

The IRS further urges users to create an ID.me account “as soon as possible.”

After Crashing Car Into Frozen Lake, Woman Takes Selfie on Roof as it Sinks

If you thought the IRS requiring them was interesting news, that’s not the only thing selfie-related that’s happened lately. In Canada, a woman drove her car into a frozen lake and took a selfie on its roof as it sank.

While certainly not an ideal selfie scenario, some people take what they can get. The Daily Mail reports a woman in Canada drove through the Rideau River just outside Ottawa. As her yellow Sedan slowly sank into the ice, she climbed onto the roof. Nearby residents rushed to save her by bringing a kayak while she snapped selfies, witnesses reported. Twitter user Lynda Douglas got a photo herself of the incident, where we can see the Sedan almost fully submerged.

Luckily, the local onlookers with the kayak managed to pull her to safety before it finished sinking. Police responded to the incident around 4:30 p.m. last Sunday. The driver faces one count of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle.

Interestingly enough, this isn’t due to driving on frozen water, as that’s perfectly legal there, but her reckless driving in general.