US pols go deeper investigating alleged Login.gov fraud

A U.S. congressional committee is not letting go of a prize bone it has been gnawing. The leaders of a House of Representatives oversight body want to know more about misstatements allegedly made by a key agency about the single sign-on Login.gov’s security.

The House members, for example, are following up on an Office of Inspector General watchdog report that accuses the General Services Administration, the agency responsible for Login.gov, of making “misrepresentations” to win a $187 million modernization grant.

Reps. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) are chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the House’s Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce.

They accuse the GSA of deliberately misleading agencies about how Login.gov, a single sign-on digital ID for people who want to access government services online, had met federal authentication security standards.

By making the digital ID authentication service appear more secure than it was, the GSA reportedly hoped to get more agencies to adopt Login.gov.

Last week, Sessions and Mfume demanded documents and staff-level briefings from the GSA, Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) and Technology Modernization Fund.

FedRAMP allegedly was presented inaccurate data in an effort to get it to certify Login.gov. The modernization fund gave the GSA $187 million for meeting certain criteria including National Institute for Standards and Technology security criteria.

As recently as this spring, GSA officials were still defending Login.gov’s fraud protection and considering the addition of biometrics.

Article Topics

face biometrics  |  government services  |  GSA  |  Login.gov  |  NIST  |  single sign-on  |  U.S. Government