Report 2020-128/628.1 Recommendation 3 Responses

Report 2020-128/628.1: Employment Development Department: EDD's Poor Planning and Ineffective Management Left It Unprepared to Assist Californians Unemployed by COVID‑19 Shutdowns (Release Date: January 2021)

Recommendation #3 To: Employment Development Department

To ensure that its identity verification processes are as robust as possible, EDD should determine by June 2021 the reasons why claimants cannot successfully complete their identity verification through ID.me and work with its vendor to resolve these problems. EDD should thereafter regularly monitor the rate of successful identity verifications to ensure that it consistently minimizes unnecessary staff intervention.

The Employment Development Department (EDD) completed its work with the ID.me vendor to improve the identity verification process. As of 1/3/2022, the last remaining ID process (Lack of Language Options for Un-Supervised Self Service Option) that required corrective action has been completed. (See attachment) EDD continues to monitor the ID.ME reports on a daily basis to improve customer experience.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Fully Implemented

The Employment Development Department (EDD) continues to work with the ID.me vendor to improve the identity verification process. The EDD continuously improves claimants' experience by analyzing and resolving the root causes of identity verification process delays and monitoring metrics on a weekly basis. As of 9/30/21, two of the three remaining ID processes that required corrective actions have been completed, and one remains in progress. (See attachment)

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Partially Implemented

Until EDD successfully updates its final language access related matter, this recommendation remains only partially implemented. Also, we noted a dip in the rate of successful use of ID.me since the last time EDD reported its progress to us. Whereas EDD had previously attained a success rate in the high 80 percent to low 90 percent range, its most recent report showed the success rate dipping into the 80-percent range exclusively. Therefore, EDD should continue to monitor the success or failure of its claimants at using its identity verification service.

The EDD began working with the vendor ID.me, and analyzed the root causes of when claimants cannot successfully complete the identity verification process and addressed issues found. Based on the results of the root cause analysis, EDD took appropriate actions to mitigate or resolve the issues. Please see attachment for more details.

EDD is currently monitoring the metrics on a weekly basis to continuously improve claimants' experience and improve processing times. The true pass/success rate for legitimate claimants has increased significantly from 83.39% during the first month of implementation to up to 91.50% in the most recent monitoring period. Please see attached ID.me Weekly Reports.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Partially Implemented

EDD has worked with ID.me to identify the reasons why claimants could not successfully complete their identify verification online. EDD and ID.me identified issues including problems with the submission of valid identity documents, individuals who did not own a smartphone not being able to complete online verification, and certain language barriers. For some of the identified issues, EDD indicates that fixes has been implemented that have benefited the users of ID.me. However, for issues related to language access, EDD indicates that progress in addressing language barriers is ongoing. EDD is also continuing to monitor the verification rate of claimant identities and reports from ID.me indicate that the verification rate is higher than it was during our audit. If EDD continues to regularly monitor the success rate of the ID.me verification and addresses the language barriers it has identified, it will fully implement this recommendation.

The EDD is currently working with ID.me to identify the reasons why legitimate claimants cannot successfully complete their identity verification through ID.me. The EDD and ID.me are regularly meeting to discuss possible solutions in order to minimize unnecessary staff intervention and ways to better serve claimants.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2020-128/628.1

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.