Pandemic Darlings The pandemic economy, in original documents
Home Profiles Blake Hall

Profiles · Principals

ProfilePerson

Blake Hall

Executive

Unemployment insurance
Type
Person
Role
Executive
Programs
Unemployment insurance
Updated

The profile

Founder and CEO of ID.me, the identity-verification company that about 30 states used for pandemic unemployment claims and that the IRS planned to require for online accounts in 2022. House Oversight Committee Democrats published findings on its wait times and fraud estimate in November 2022, which ID.me disputes; four senators asked the FTC in May 2022 to investigate its facial-recognition statements.

In the archive

Identity and role

Blake Hall is the founder and CEO of ID.me, Inc., a Northern Virginia identity-verification company that sells remote identity proofing to governments and businesses. He founded it in 2010 (Wikipedia, secondary) and still runs it. The company is in the McLean/Tysons area outside Washington, where Hall is based.

Biography

Hall came to identity from the Army: commissioned in 2004 and Ranger-qualified, he served in Iraq and was awarded the Bronze Star (Military Times profile); we do not have a copy of the Inc. profile cited for two Bronze Stars, the hospital-defense citation and the Mosul detail. He graduated from Vanderbilt in 2004 with a history degree (Vanderbilt History Department feature) and later took an MBA at Harvard (Military Times).

ID.me launched in 2010 as TroopSwap, a military-discount and daily-deals business, and discovered that most of its work was verifying that users really were service members. It pivoted to that verification — "Troop ID" — and rebranded as ID.me in 2013, broadening to students, teachers, first responders, and eventually government identity. Wikipedia (secondary) names Matthew Thompson among the co-founders; the Tanel Suurhans co-founder line is not in any copy we have.

The company and its relief role

ID.me sells account-based remote identity proofing: a user creates an account, proves identity with documents and a facial-recognition selfie match, and, when the automation fails, moves into a live video session with a "trusted referee."

During the pandemic it became an identity gate for state unemployment-insurance benefits; the House Oversight Democrats' release counts at least 25 state agencies. The Washington Post's Feb. 9, 2022 report is cited for an $86 million Treasury contract, but our copy does not carry the figure.

House Oversight Committee Democrats released their findings and allegations on November 17, 2022. They are not court findings, and ID.me disputes them. The committee said ID.me contracted with at least 25 state agencies and received nearly $45 million; that it routed 10 to 15 percent of applicants into video chat; and that wait times ran for hours: in 14 of 21 states it served in April 2021, averages exceeded four hours, with North Dakota averaging close to ten. The committee further alleged that ID.me had removed appointment scheduling because it was "hindering efficiency," and that the company understated wait times to the IRS.

In June 2021 Hall said that America had "lost more than $400 billion to fraudulent claims" in unemployment — as much, he said, as half of all unemployment money. The committee called the figure baseless: ID.me could not provide a methodology, the number ran nearly ten times the Labor Department inspector general's potential-fraud assessment, and the committee said the claim looked like an attempt to drive demand for ID.me's services. ID.me disputed the findings in a public statement. Both the figure and the criticism of it are allegations and characterizations, not adjudicated facts.

In late 2021 the IRS announced that, starting in 2022, taxpayers would need an ID.me account — photo ID plus a video selfie — to use certain online tools. Lawmakers and privacy advocates objected. On February 7, 2022 the IRS abandoned the facial-recognition plan (Washington Post), and two days later ID.me said it would drop the facial-recognition requirement for the state and federal agencies using it (Washington Post, Feb. 9, 2022).

Their own relief

No PPP loan to ID.me has been located .

In January 2022 Hall said publicly that ID.me did not use 1:many facial recognition, then said on LinkedIn that the company does use 1:many matching as a fraud tool (CyberScoop).

On May 18, 2022, Senators Wyden, Booker, Markey, and Padilla urged the FTC to investigate ID.me for deceptive practices over the facial-recognition statements. No public FTC enforcement action, consent order, or settlement against ID.me is on record, and whether the FTC opened a non-public inquiry is not publicly documented. No lawsuit, DOJ action or SEC action against ID.me has been located in the public record.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

In September 2025 ID.me announced a $340 million raise at a valuation above $2 billion, led by Ribbit Capital and framed around fighting AI-driven fraud, and reported about 152 million users across roughly 20 federal agencies (company release; SiliconANGLE). The "$1.1 billion total funding", "45 states", CMS/Medicare.gov, SSA/VA and Login.gov lines are not in the sources we have. SiliconANGLE cites a third-party ARR estimate of about $150 million.

Sources held in this archive

Original source documents and archived captures

  • ID.me — his company, the identity gate for pandemic unemployment systems.
  • Charles Rettig — IRS commissioner during the ID.me facial-recognition contract fight.

Sources

Back to top