As public benefits access increasingly becomes digital, so too do its processes and their ease across governments and other sectors, and for people with different disabilities.
Governments are working to make digital benefits more secure to combat a rise in fraud, but they may be adding barriers to access, as revealed by a report released Tuesday from the Digital Benefits Network (DBN) at Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation. The Beeck Center is a nonpartisan, vendor-neutral organization that works with government, philanthropic and civic tech partners to support modern service delivery.
The report features findings from the Digital Doorways research project, conducted this spring, and offers insights and recommendations directly from beneficiaries to improve the digital public benefits application process. The resource aims to inform officials at state benefits agencies, community-based organizations and partners, policy advocacy and research groups, and philanthropic funders.
“We think it’s so important for folks — in state agencies, in the civic tech ecosystem, in philanthropy — to hear directly from beneficiaries about their perspectives on this issue and these processes, instead of just taking our word for it,” Elizabeth Bynum Sorrell, DBN senior research and engagement manager, said.
BARRIERS TO ACCESS
Beneficiaries’ experiences accessing public benefits revealed several common barriers that can be improved.
For example, privacy concerns exist when sharing personal data required to access these benefits. People want to know when, why and how their data might be used. Data privacy is becoming increasingly complex as the federal government has begun collecting data for purposes other than those for which it was collected.
“We really did hear a lot from people about concerns about privacy, but ultimately, that they were going to prioritize getting access to the programs that they need over those concerns about how their data might be used or what might happen to it,” Bynum Sorrell said.
To combat privacy concerns and fraud, many benefits providers have implemented stringent security measures, such as multifactor authentication (MFA) or biometric verification.
These measures pose their own challenges. MFA assumes applicants have high digital literacy and stable access to devices and accounts. For people who are unhoused, and for those who have lost their phones or changed numbers, MFA may not be possible. And regarding biometric verification, these technologies have high rates of error for already marginalized populations like people of color, women, and transgender people. As such, there are varied levels of trust in these tools.
Another security practice, knowledge-based verification, can pose its own biases, in which questions do not reflect diverse life experiences.
“The only problem is that I’ve lived in a million places … there’s some places where I was a little bit unstable and I don’t remember where I lived,” one beneficiary said, per the report. Allowing users to have a choice in the questions selected, or picking something constant, can help mitigate challenges.
Importantly, the research found that applicants want human support access in the benefits application process, even if that makes it take more time. It would be unlikely that, without a human component, such a process could meet the needs of those accessing these programs, Bynum Sorrell said.
“I need to talk to somebody … I’m done talking to a robot,” the report quoted one beneficiary as saying.
A PATH TO IMPROVEMENT
The report offers several recommendations to help alleviate friction in the benefits application process.
Agency transparency around data practices, and maintaining human support, can both help remediate trust and privacy concerns.
Benefits providers should use a risk-based approach to evaluate whether a specific transaction requires an account. If it does, the process should be structured to let the beneficiaries themselves make security choices. If verification is required, there should be multiple pathways for users to do so. When needed, emerging technologies like biometric recognition tools and mobile driver’s licenses should be used with privacy guardrails in place.
“What state and local agencies are being asked to do is not an easy task,” Bynum Sorrell said of the need to balance security and accessibility in these processes, arguing that stakeholders can work together to determine how to move forward.
Different benefits providers’ processes have different strengths, Bynum Sorrell underlined, highlighting Michigan’s integration of passkeys in its single sign-on process, and Colorado’s decision to make account creation optional.
Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, told Government Technology that Utah is a state leading in privacy around digital identity, having passed a law to create protections. More protections and standardization are needed across other states, he said.
The report recommends that benefits-administering agencies, policymakers, and other stakeholders consider the following steps: additional research with individuals from marginalized communities who face greater barriers to accessing public benefits, usability testing and research, and co-creation of digital identity processes that could be used across states.
