US senators have asked the US Federal Trade Commission to investigate ID.me. Legislators claimed that the firm misled the public about the capabilities of its facial recognition system.

The group drew attention to the statement made by ID.me CEO Blake Hall that the company allegedly does not use one-to-many face recognition. It later turned out that during registration the system checks the user’s snapshot against the entire database “to prevent identity theft”.

“Americans have particular reason to be concerned about the difference between these two types of facial recognition,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter.

They say taking this approach means that millions of people will be screened using a biometric identification method that ID.me itself has described as problematic.

“Mismatches on one-to-many recognition can lead to erroneous denials of much-needed services for weeks or even months as people try to review their cases,” the senators said.

ID.me declined to comment on the concerns outlined in the letter. Instead, the company drew attention to its experience in preventing unemployment fraud.

“Our service is critical in stopping this attack in more than 20 states,” the company said in a statement.

ID.me added that they look forward to further cooperation with government agencies “to resolve any misunderstandings.”

Recall that in January the company acknowledged the use of a one-to-many approach to facial recognition.

In February, senators urged the Internal Revenue Service not to use the ID.me system.

That same month, the agency refused to implement the company’s facial recognition system.