DENVER (AP) — Colorado's use of new technology to protect its unemployment system from scammers is creating a digital divide.
Colorado Public Radio reports the labor department recently enlisted a third-party platform, ID.me, to verify people’s identities.
That process requires users to scan their faces with a smartphone’s camera and upload photographs of their IDs.
The change is hitting certain groups particularly hard. For example, a smartphone is mandatory for ID.me’s main automated process.
But about 15 percent of the U.S. population doesn’t own a smartphone, a group that disproportionately includes older adults, Black and Latino people, people with less income and those in rural areas.
