US Senator Ron Wyden wants the public to know about the details surrounding the long-running Hemisphere phone surveillance program. Wyden has written US Attorney General Merrick Garland a letter (PDF), asking him to release additional information about the project that apparently gives law enforcement agencies access to trillions of domestic phone records. In addition, he said that federal, state, local and Tribal law enforcement agencies have the ability to request "often-warrantless searches" from the project's phone records that AT&T has been collecting since 1987.
The Hemisphere project first came to light in 2013 when The New York Times reported that the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) was paying AT&T to mine and keep records of its customers' phone calls. Four billion new records are getting added to its database every day, and a federal or state law enforcement agency can request a query with a subpoena that they can issue themselves. Any law enforcement officer can send in a request to a single AT&T analyst based in Atlanta, Georgia, Wyden's letter says, even if they're seeking information that's not related to any drug case. And apparently, they can use Hemisphere not just to identify a specific number, but to identify the target's alternate numbers, to obtain location data and to look up the phone records of everyone who's been in communication with the target.
The project has been defunded and refunded by the government several times over the past decade and was even, at one point, receiving federal funding under the name "Data Analytical Services (DAS)." Usually, projects funded by federal agencies would be subject to a mandatory Privacy Impact Assessment conducted by the Department of Justice, which means their records would be made public.
However, Hemisphere's funding passes through a middleman, so it's not required to go through mandatory assessment. To be specific, ONDCP funds the program through the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, which is a regional funding organization that distributes federal anti-drug law grants and is governed by a board made up of federal, state and local law enforcement officials. The DOJ had provided Wyden's office with "dozens of pages of material" related to the project in 2019, but they had been labeled "Law Enforcement Sensitive" and cannot be released to the public.
"I have serious concerns about the legality of this surveillance program, and the materials provided by the DOJ contain troubling information that would justifiably outrage many Americans and other members of Congress," Wyden wrote in his letter. "While I have long defended the government’s need to protect classified sources and methods, this surveillance program is not classified and its existence has already been acknowledged by the DOJ in federal court. The public interest in an informed debate about government surveillance far outweighs the need to keep this information secret."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/us-senator-calls-for-the-public-release-of-att-hemisphere-surveillance-records-083627787.html?src=rss
The Biden Administration unveiled its ambitious next steps in addressing and regulating artificial intelligence development on Monday. Its expansive new executive order (EO) seeks to establish further protections for the public as well as improve best practices for federal agencies and their contractors.
"The President several months ago directed his team to pull every lever," a senior administration official told reporters on a recent press call. "That's what this order does, bringing the power of the federal government to bear in a wide range of areas to manage AI's risk and harness its benefits ... It stands up for consumers and workers, promotes innovation and competition, advances American leadership around the world and like all executive orders, this one has the force of law."
These actions will be introduced over the next year with smaller safety and security changes happening in around 90 days and with more involved reporting and data transparency schemes requiring nine to 12 months to fully deploy. The administration is also creating an “AI council,” chaired by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bruce Reed, who will meet with federal agency heads to ensure that the actions are being executed on schedule.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Public safety
"In response to the President's leadership on the subject, 15 major American technology companies have begun their voluntary commitments to ensure that AI technology is safe, secure and trustworthy before releasing it to the public," the senior administration official said. "That is not enough."
The EO directs the establishment of new standards for AI safety and security, including reporting requirements for developers whose foundation models might impact national or economic security. Those requirements will also apply in developing AI tools to autonomously implement security fixes on critical software infrastructure.
By leveraging the Defense Production Act, this EO will "require that companies developing any foundation model that poses a serious risk to national security, national economic security, or national public health and safety must notify the federal government when training the model, and must share the results of all red-team safety tests," per a White House press release. That information must be shared prior to the model being made available to to the public, which could help reduce the rate at which companies unleash half-baked and potentially deadly machine learning products.
In addition to the sharing of red team test results, the EO also requires disclosure of the system’s training runs (essentially, its iterative development history). “What that does is that creates a space prior to the release… to verify that the system is safe and secure,” officials said.
Administration officials were quick to point out that this reporting requirement will not impact any AI models currently available on the market, nor will it impact independent or small- to medium-size AI companies moving forward, as the threshold for enforcement is quite high. It's geared specifically for the next generation of AI systems that the likes of Google, Meta and OpenAI are already working on with enforcement on models starting at 10^26 petaflops, a capacity currently beyond the limits of existing AI models. "This is not going to catch AI systems trained by graduate students, or even professors,” the administration official said.
What's more, the EO will encourage the Departments of Energy and Homeland Security to address AI threats "to critical infrastructure, as well as chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and cybersecurity risks," per the release. "Agencies that fund life-science projects will establish these standards as a condition of federal funding, creating powerful incentives to ensure appropriate screening and manage risks potentially made worse by AI." In short, any developers found in violation of the EO can likely expect a prompt and unpleasant visit from the DoE, FDA, EPA or other applicable regulatory agency, regardless of their AI model’s age or processing speed.
In an effort to proactively address the decrepit state of America's digital infrastructure, the order also seeks to establish a cybersecurity program, based loosely on the administration's existing AI Cyber Challenge, to develop AI tools that can autonomously root out and shore up security vulnerabilities in critical software infrastructure. It remains to be seen whether those systems will be able to address the concerns of misbehaving models that SEC head Gary Gensler recently raised.
AI watermarking and cryptographic validation
We're already seeing the normalization of deepfake trickery and AI-empowered disinformation on the campaign trail. So, the White House is taking steps to ensure that the public can trust the text, audio and video content that it publishes on its official channels. The public must be able to easily validate whether the content they see is AI-generated or not, argued White House officials on the press call.
Adobe
The Department of Commerce is in charge of the latter effort and is expected to work closely with existing industry advocacy groups like the C2PA and its sister organization, the CAI, to develop and implement a watermarking system for federal agencies. “We aim to support and facilitate and help standardize that work [by the C2PA],” administration officials said. “We see ourselves as plugging into that ecosystem.”
Officials further explained that the government is supporting the underlying technical standards and practices that will lead to digital watermarking’ wider adoption — similar to the work it did around developing the HTTPS ecosystem and in getting both developers and the public on-board with it. This will help federal officials achieve their other goal of ensuring that the government's official messaging can be relied upon.
Civil rights and consumer protections
The first Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights that the White House released last October directed agencies to “combat algorithmic discrimination while enforcing existing authorities to protect people's rights and safety,” the administration official said. “But there's more to do.”
The new EO will require guidance be extended to “landlords, federal benefits programs and federal contractors” to prevent AI systems from exacerbating discrimination within their spheres of influence. It will also direct the Department of Justice to develop best practices for investigating and prosecuting civil rights violations related to AI, as well as, according to the announcement, “the use of AI in sentencing, parole and probation, pretrial release and detention, risk assessments, surveillance, crime forecasting and predictive policing, and forensic analysis."
Additionally, the EO calls for prioritizing federal support to accelerate development of privacy-preserving techniques that would enable future large language models to be trained on large datasets without the current risk of leaking personal details that those datasets might contain. These solutions could include “cryptographic tools that preserve individuals’ privacy,” developed with assistance from the Research Coordination Network and National Science Foundation. The executive order also reiterates its calls for bipartisan legislation from Congress addressing the broader privacy issues that AI systems present for consumers.
In terms of healthcare, the EO states that the Department of Health and Human Services will establish a safety program that tracks and remedies unsafe, AI-based medical practices. Educators will also see support from the federal government in using AI-based educational tools like personalized chatbot tutoring.
Worker protections
The Biden administration concedes that while the AI revolution is a decided boon for business, its capabilities make it a threat to worker security through job displacement and intrusive workplace surveillance. The EO seeks to address these issues with “the development of principles and employer best practices that mitigate the harms and maximize the benefit of AI for workers,” an administration official said. “We encourage federal agencies to adopt these guidelines in the administration of their programs.”
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
The EO will also direct the Department of Labor and the Council of Economic Advisors to both study how AI might impact the labor market and how the federal government might better support workers “facing labor disruption” moving forward. Administration officials also pointed to the potential benefits that AI might bring to the federal bureaucracy including cutting costs, and increasing cybersecurity efficacy. “There's a lot of opportunity here, but we have to to ensure the responsible government development and deployment of AI,” an administration official said.
To that end, the administration is launching on Monday a new federal jobs portal, AI.gov, which will offer information and guidance on available fellowship programs for folks looking for work with the federal government. “We're trying to get more AI talent across the board,” an administration official said. “Programs like the US Digital Service, the Presidential Innovation Fellowship and USA jobs — doing as much as we can to get talent in the door.” The White House is also looking to expand existing immigration rules to streamline visa criteria, interviews and reviews for folks trying to move to and work in the US in these advanced industries.
The White House reportedly did not brief the industry on this particular swath of radical policy changes, though administration officials did note that they had already been collaborating extensively with AI companies on many of these issues. The Senate held its second AI Insight Forum event last week on Capitol Hill, while Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to speak at the UK Summit on AI Safety, hosted by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday.
Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images
At an event hosted by The Washington Post on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was already arguing that the executive order did not go far enough and could not be considered an effective replacement for congressional action, which to date, has been slow in coming.
“There’s probably a limit to what you can do by executive order,” Schumer told WaPo, “They [the Biden Administration] are concerned, and they’re doing a lot regulatorily, but everyone admits the only real answer is legislative.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sweeping-white-house-ai-executive-order-takes-aim-at-the-technologys-toughest-challenges-090008655.html?src=rss
It looks like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) truly was working on a free TurboTax alternative like earlier reports had claimed. The US tax authority has announced that it will start pilot testing its new Direct File program for the 2024 filing season, though it will initially be available for select taxpayers in 13 states only. During its pilot period, Direct File will only cover individual federal tax returns and won't have the capability to prepare people's state returns. That's why 9 out of the 13 states testing it — namely Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming — don't levy state income taxes.
Arizona, California, Massachusetts and New York, the other four states in the list, worked with the IRS to integrate their state taxes into the Direct File system for 2024. The IRS says it invited all states to join the pilot program, but not all of them were in a position to participate "at this time." In addition to being only available in certain locations, Direct File will only be accessible by people with "relatively simple returns" at the beginning. It will cover W-2 wages and tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, for instance, but it will not cover self-employment income and itemized deductions. However, the agency is still finalizing the tax scope for the pilot, so it could still change over the coming months.
Based on the screenshots the IRS shared with The Washington Post, taxpayers will only have to answer a questionnaire to be able to file their taxes directly, simplifying the process without having to pay for a third-party service. An IRS official told the publication that select eligible taxpayers in the aforementioned states will start getting invitations to use the service sometime around mid-February next year. The agency says it will begin with a small group of taxpayers before expanding access to more and more people as the filing season for the 2023 federal tax return progresses.
"This is a critical step forward for this innovative effort that will test the feasibility of providing taxpayers a new option to file their returns for free directly with the IRS," IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement. "In this limited pilot for 2024, we'll be working closely with the states that have agreed to participate in an important test run of the state integration. This will help us gather important information about the future direction of the Direct File program."
The IRS is hoping to gather data and feedback during the pilot to be able to analyze how effective Direct File is. It's also hoping to identify areas of improvement for a "potential large-scale launch in the future."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/irs-will-start-piloting-its-free-turbotax-alternative-in-2024-065553528.html?src=rss
The federal government will conduct a nationwide alert test on Wednesday, October 4. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will send notifications to cell phones (as well as radios and TVs) to test the National Wireless Emergency Alert System and ensure the system (including the public’s familiarity with it) is ready for a real crisis.
The cellphone portion of the test will assess Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) nationwide. If you live near a decent-sized metro area, there’s a solid chance you’ve received AMBER alerts through this system before; it can also broadcast signals for imminent threats, public safety and presidential notices in a national emergency. The test’s WEA portion will use FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), a centralized internet-based system that can broadcast emergency notifications through various communications networks.
If your cell phone is set to English, you’ll receive a message at around 2:20PM ET reading, “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.” Those with phones set to Spanish as their primary language will see, “ESTA ES UNA PRUEBA del Sistema Nacional de Alerta de Emergencia. No se necesita acción.”
Of course, the messages will be accompanied by a “unique tone and vibration.” Based on past tests we’ve received, that could easily be described as “a jarring and obnoxious alarm that will immediately make you stop what you’re doing, utter select obscenities and pick up your phone to make it stop.”
Using the Emergency Alert System (EAS), the television and radio portion of the assessment is scheduled to happen simultaneously. This will be the seventh nationwide EAS test.
The cell phone part of the test is scheduled to last for about 30 minutes, but you should be able to dismiss the notification and shut up your phone as soon as you see and hear it. And in the (extremely unlikely) event of an actual emergency on Wednesday, the test will take place a week later on the backup date of October 11.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/your-phone-will-blare-a-national-emergency-alert-test-on-october-4-at-220pm-et-184322119.html?src=rss
Federal regulatory agencies have fined 11 financial institutions a combined $549 million for using “off-channel” messaging apps (WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal and text messages) for conversations about trades and other business. Securities laws require investment firms and banks to preserve communications records and ensure employees only carry out business through authorized channels. “The firms did not maintain or preserve the substantial majority of these off-channel communications, in violation of the federal securities laws,” the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wrote in a statement today.
The Wall Street firms were fined over half a billion dollars in penalties for using messaging apps instead of email, approved messaging platforms or other easily archived channels. Firms penalized by the SEC include Wells Fargo ($125 million), BNP Paribas ($35 million), SG Americas Securities ($35 million), BMO Capital Markets ($25 million), Mizuho Securities ($25 million), Houlihan Lokey Capital ($15 million), Moelis & Company ($10 million), Wedbush Securities ($10 million) and SMBC Nikko Securities America ($9 million). Meanwhile, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined Wells Fargo ($75 million), BNP Paribas ($75 million), Société Générale ($75 million) and Bank of Montreal ($35 million).
“Recordkeeping failures such as those here undermine our ability to exercise effective regulatory oversight, often at the expense of investors,” said Sanjay Wadhwa, the SEC’s Deputy Director of Enforcement. “The Commission’s message could not be more clear — recordkeeping and supervision requirements are fundamental, and registrants that fail to comply with these core regulatory obligations do so at their own peril,” said CFTC Director of Enforcement Ian McGinley.
Federal regulators said all firms admitted to the facts about unapproved communications in agreeing to the penalties. “As described in the SEC’s orders, the firms admitted that from at least 2019, their employees often communicated through various messaging platforms on their personal devices, including iMessage, WhatsApp, and Signal, about the business of their employers,” the SEC wrote in a statement. “The firms did not maintain or preserve the substantial majority of these off-channel communications, in violation of the federal securities laws. By failing to maintain and preserve required records, certain of the firms likely deprived the Commission of these off-channel communications in various SEC investigations.”
Both government agencies stressed that the problem was pervasive and not limited to entry-level employees and junior staff. “The failures involved employees at multiple levels of authority, including supervisors and senior executives,” the SEC said.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wall-street-banks-fined-549-million-for-not-backing-up-messaging-app-histories-164552963.html?src=rss
A Congressional subcommittee is set to hold a hearing into UFOs, which are also referred to as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). The panel will hear "firsthand accounts" of UAP and "assess the federal government’s transparency and accountability" regarding possible threats to national security. You'll be able to watch the hearing below on July 26th at 10AM ET.
The hearing — conducted by the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border and Foreign Affairs — will also focus on drives for legislation to "bring transparency to UAPs." The subcommittee wants to force the federal government to provide US residents with "information about potential risks to public safety and national security" as well. According to Rep. Tim Burchett, “The Pentagon and Washington bureaucrats have kept this information hidden for decades and we’re finally going to shed some light on it."
The federal government has placed more of an onus on UAPs over the last few years (publicly, at least). In 2021, the Pentagon set up a task force to look into UAP sightings while NASA has established a separate panel to investigate the phenomena. The Department of Defense also created its own UAP investigative body, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), in 2022.
Among the three witnesses who will testify during the hearing is David Grusch. The former intelligence official recently claimed that the US government has been recovering alien spacecraft and the bodies of UAP pilots for decades. Grusch, who until July 2022 was the co-lead for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's UAP analysis, also said there was evidence of "malevolent activity" by UFOs. His claims, for which he has not provided any physical evidence, led to the hearing.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/how-to-watch-this-weeks-congressional-ufo-hearing-164546251.html?src=rss
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed a formal ban on fake reviews and testimonials. Companies would also be prohibited from using phony followers and views to inflate their social media metrics if the rule takes effect as it stands.
This isn't the first time the agency has trained its sights on fake reviews. In its first such case in 2019, it fined a third-party Amazon seller for paying for fake reviews (Amazon itself has sued phony review providers). Earlier this year, the FTC levied a $600,000 penalty against the owner of a vitamin brand for “review hijacking" on Amazon.
The new rule, which the agency said it was working on in October, is close to being finalized and it includes steep penalties for those caught peddling fake reviews and testimonials. As The Washington Post points out, the FTC plans to slap businesses that "buy, sell and manipulate online reviews" up to $50,000. Not only is that fine for each phony review, it's also for every time a consumer sees it. So, if the FTC finds out that one fake review has been viewed just 20 times, the business that bought it could be on the hook for $1 million.
“Our proposed rule on fake reviews shows that we’re using all available means to attack deceptive advertising in the digital age,” Samuel Levine, the director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. “The rule would trigger civil penalties for violators and should help level the playing field for honest companies.”
Explicitly, the FTC aims to ban "businesses from writing or selling consumer reviews or testimonials by someone who does not exist, who did not have experience with the product or service, or who misrepresented their experiences." Similarly, companies won't be allowed to obtain or disseminate reviews and testimonials that they "knew or should have known that they were fake or false."
Repurposing an existing review to make it appear that it was written for a different product (i.e. review hijacking) will be outlawed, as will offering payments or other kinds of compensation for positive or negative reviews. The FTC says companies can still ask users to leave a review, as that's an important way for small businesses to enhance their reputations.
Managers and officers won't be allowed to post reviews of their company's products without clear disclosures and nor can they ask family members or employees to do so in certain circumstances. Under the proposed rule, companies won't be allowed to run websites that claim to offer independent reviews of categories of products and services that include their own offerings.
Review suppression will be banned as well. Companies won't be allowed to use intimidation tactics, such as legal threats and false accusations, to push customers to remove or avoid leaving a negative review.
In addition, the FTC seeks to ban companies from using fake followers and views to fluff up their social media numbers. "The proposed rule also would bar anyone from buying such indicators to misrepresent their importance for a commercial purpose," the agency said. This is a provision that could have far-reaching consequences beyond commerce — influencers may have to ensure they don't factor in bots when they try to secure brand deals.
Meanwhile, the proposed notice for the rule takes note of the popularity of generative AI. "It has been reported that an AI chatbot is being used to create fake reviews," it reads. "As the reporting notes, the widespread emergence of AI chatbots is likely to make it easier for bad actors to write fake reviews."
The rule won't take effect immediately. It will be open to public comments for a 60-day period, after which the agency will consider changes before finalizing the directive.
A lot of these provisions make sense. In essence, the FTC is trying to ensure that businesses and brands are transparent and honest with consumers. Actually enforcing these measures, however, is a different matter. The agency told the Post that it won't be getting extra resources to tackle purveyors of fake reviews, but a codified rule can strengthen its hand in court. Taking on companies based overseas that sell and post phony reviews might be a difficult task too. Still, a formal ban on these practices and the threat of eye-popping fines may be enough to deter some companies from using fake reviews.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-ftc-plans-to-slap-companies-with-hefty-fines-for-using-fake-reviews-192833691.html?src=rss
If younger generations are more likely to feel the effects of climate change, shouldn't they have a say in related government policies? The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) thinks so. It's officially forming its "first-ever" National Environmental Youth Advisory Council. The agency is inviting 16 people aged 18 to 29 to have them influence the agency's approach to environmental issues that affect youth communities.
In keeping with the EPA's increasing focus on environmental justice, at least half of the council's overall membership will come from, live in or do most of its work in "disadvantaged" communities where clean air, land and water aren't guaranteed. Youth interested in the panel will have until August 22nd at 11:59PM Eastern to apply, with webinars for would-be applicants on June 30th and August 7th.
Agency head Michael Regan argues that it's not practical to address environmental issues without the help of younger people who are often at the "forefront of social movements." The council makes sure that youth play a role in decisions, the administrator adds.
Plans for the council were originally unveiled in June 2022, and come several months after the EPA created an Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. That new division is meant to include "underserved communities" in the regulatory process, Vice President Kamala Harris said at the time. In that light, the youth council is an extension of last year's strategy.
The Biden's administration has made the environment a key element of its policy. The wide-ranging Inflation Reduction Act includes $3 billion in environmental justice grants as well as revised (if sometimes stricter) EV tax credits. The youth council won't necessarily lead to major changes in policy, but it makes sense when young adults are more likely to deal with the most severe effects of rising global temperatures than the official rule makers.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/epa-creates-youth-council-to-advise-the-agency-on-climate-change-policy-154558548.html?src=rss
If younger generations are more likely to feel the effects of climate change, shouldn't they have a say in related government policies? The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) thinks so. It's officially forming its "first-ever" National Environmental Youth Advisory Council. The agency is inviting 16 people aged 18 to 29 to have them influence the agency's approach to environmental issues that affect youth communities.
In keeping with the EPA's increasing focus on environmental justice, at least half of the council's overall membership will come from, live in or do most of its work in "disadvantaged" communities where clean air, land and water aren't guaranteed. Youth interested in the panel will have until August 22nd at 11:59PM Eastern to apply, with webinars for would-be applicants on June 30th and August 7th.
Agency head Michael Regan argues that it's not practical to address environmental issues without the help of younger people who are often at the "forefront of social movements." The council makes sure that youth play a role in decisions, the administrator adds.
Plans for the council were originally unveiled in June 2022, and come several months after the EPA created an Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. That new division is meant to include "underserved communities" in the regulatory process, Vice President Kamala Harris said at the time. In that light, the youth council is an extension of last year's strategy.
The Biden's administration has made the environment a key element of its policy. The wide-ranging Inflation Reduction Act includes $3 billion in environmental justice grants as well as revised (if sometimes stricter) EV tax credits. The youth council won't necessarily lead to major changes in policy, but it makes sense when young adults are more likely to deal with the most severe effects of rising global temperatures than the official rule makers.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/epa-creates-youth-council-to-advise-the-agency-on-climate-change-policy-154558548.html?src=rss
Doing your taxes in the United States can be famously convoluted. It can also be expensive: on top of paying their tax bills, Americans who have more complicated finances often have to pay for software to help them navigate the US tax code. That might change soon: a report from the Washington Post says that the Internal Revenue Services is preparing to roll out a free direct filing system that will allow Americans to complete their taxes digitally.
The first version of the direct filing system could be available as soon as next year, according to the report, with a pilot program launching for a small group of taxpayers in January of 2024. That would arrive just a year after the IRS publicly started exploring the option, when the tax agency tapped the New America think tank to help explore the feasibility of an agency-run filing program. That effort was kicked off in February of this year, after the Inflation Reduction Act earmarked $15 million to the IRS to research a "multi-lingual and mobile-friendly" free direct e-file system.
That focus on a user-friendly system might be the point. The IRS already offers a Free File Online tool, but according to the Government Accountability Offices, it's used by less than 3% of eligible taxpayers. If the program is a success, it could make filing taxes easier and more affordable for millions of Americans. If not? Well, TurboTax and H&R Block probably aren't going anywhere. After all, the US tax prep and filing industry is still worth about $14 billion.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-irs-reportedly-has-a-free-turbotax-alternative-in-the-works-191527170.html?src=rss