Source: The American Prospect
by Robert Kuttner
“Last week, I published a piece on a private company called ID.me, which has over a billion dollars in contracts with federal and state agencies to provide secure identification when citizens do digital transactions with government agencies. Because this company is a dot-me rather than a dot-com, several readers wrote me to say that they had just assumed it was part of the government. Over 150 million Americans now have ID.me accounts, which are required to access several government agencies. ID.me has a policy of never selling data. But that’s not the problem. The problem is that allowing citizens to access government agencies is a necessary government function. As I wrote, contracting out that function deprives the government of core competence, and the dependence on for-profit vendors grows over time.” [editor’s not4e: I added the “?” to make this a discussion, instead of the assertion of the socialist pundit – SAT] (10/13/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/10/13/time-to-de-privatize-federal-government/