The IRS will pay Equifax $7.25 million to verify taxpayer identities and help prevent fraud under a no-bid contract issued last week, even as lawmakers lash the embattled company about a massive security breach that exposed personal information of as many as 145.5 million Americans.
A contract award for Equifax's data services was posted to the Federal Business Opportunities database Sept. 30 — the final day of the fiscal year. The credit agency will "verify taxpayer identity" and "assist in ongoing identity verification and validations" at the IRS, according to the award.
The notice describes the contract as a "sole source order," meaning Equifax is the only company deemed capable of providing the service. It says the order was issued to prevent a lapse in identity checks while officials resolve a dispute over a separate contract.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/03/equifax-irs-fraud-protection-contract-243419
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @04:31PM
No. Given the political climate right now, any bureaucrat or political appointee could easily kill this proposal. Saying "Equifax has literally just broke the public trust, we need to stall a few weeks to re-investigate" would pass any congressional oversight committee or White House audit with a nod and rubber-stamp. That's also begging the question of why it's a sole-source contract in the first place. What could Equifax do that TransUnion and/or Experian couldn't? There may be something, but I don't know what.
You are right that this has been cooking for quite some time, though. As you said, $7.5M is not a small procurement. What really happened here is that "somebody" really wanted to give money to Equifax. I don't know why: it could be corruption, it could be a back-handed reward for assisting an Intelligence agency with something, it could be pork-barrel spending by a congressman, or any number of reasons. However, somebody really wanted to give Equifax money. Then the recent news sidelined that and gave somebody a really bad day. They stalled as long as they could, but then realized that the fiscal clock was running out and tried to sneak the procurement out with as low a profile as they could... and they got caught.