Image Recognition
See More →The IRS has paid an Israeli company hundreds of thousands of dollars for an internet investigative tool that allows the IRS to conduct undercover investigations online, according to internal IRS documents obtained by Motherboard. Cobwebs Technologies, the company behind the tool, sometimes sells its platform with a facial recognition and other AI-focused capabilities add-on. The news comes as Republicans try to prevent the Biden administration from hiring tens of thousands of new IRS employees. The IRS paid Cobwebs $181,000 in August 2020, and $229,000 in August 2022, according to procurement records. The IRS bought access to the data from a company called Venntel, which sources the data in part from ordinary apps installed on peoples’ phones.