The inauguration of the Fraud Prevention and Recovery Act models President Biden’s Fraud Prevention and Recovery Act to crackdown on systemic fraud which occurred during the pandemic.
During an international emergency, fraudsters capitalised on impacted economies and underfunded government technologies to exacerbate identity theft and fraud of benefit services. This exposed serious inadequacies in identity vetting for government benefit systems which will need to be improved by using non-knowledge based verification.
Biden’s proposals for a series of bills aim to support victims of identity theft, compensating millions of dollars towards the prosecution and investigation of those who engaged in fraud activities and fraud prevention. A $75 million investment will buy an identity validation system, operated by the Social Security Administration, that allows agencies to validate critical identity information against official government records. In total, $275 million will be made readily available to enable modern upgrades of identity verification and fraud prevention systems.
