The U.S. Department of the Treasury recently issued an unexpected announcement regarding the future of TreasuryDirect accounts which are used to manage treasuries and savings bonds. Starting September 13, 2026, users will be prompted to create new accounts with a different login platform, ID.me, that will become mandatory on October 28, 2026 when their current legacy accounts will be deactivated. This means that anyone who does not create a third-party ID.me account by this deadline will abruptly lose online access to their personal financial holdings with Treasury Direct.

The 45-day window mentioned in the announcement does not provide adequate time for a digital migration of this magnitude. Millions of American citizens use Treasury Direct and trust the federal government to secure their savings bonds and marketable securities. Forcing a sudden, total reliance on a private commercial contractor without  providing any alternative means of account access is an overreach that will leave many people behind, including vulnerable populations. Elderly account holders and individuals without modern smartphones will assuredly face technical barriers. The setup often demands real-time smartphone video selfies, leaving many unable to fulfill the registration requirements.

Communication is also a major concern. Treasury Direct notifications are distributed by email and posted on their website. It is possible the former may not be received or acknowledged, and the latter is likely to be overlooked entirely. Countless account holders may miss the warning as a result and will discover sometime after October 28, 2026 that they have been unwittingly locked out of their accounts with no alternative method to access their holdings. 

Opting out of the account migration process entirely is also problematic. Investors who choose to redeem their assets and close their accounts ahead of the transition to avoid using ID.me face a major hurdle. They will be blocked from accessing their Form 1099 tax documents early next year, since TreasuryDirect does not mail out these forms to their customers and the platform requires a login to download the forms.

Privacy and trustworthiness issues abound. ID.me is a private, third-party, for-profit corporation. Mandating that citizens hand over highly sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) and raw biometric data to a private entity to access their own government-backed savings raises profound questions regarding civil liberties as well as data security and retention. Introducing ID.me as an option is one thing. Foisting it on the public as a mandated rule is entirely different and onerous.

During the pandemic, ID.me’s deployment across state agencies exposed significant vulnerabilities, many of which remain unaddressed. Capacity issues, software errors, and false positives and negatives triggered massive systemic bottlenecks. Countless users suffered from locked profiles and frozen accounts, compounded by heavily underreported wait times for live customer assistance. Serious concerns persist regarding long-term privacy, data vulnerabilities, and the retention of personal biometric data long after an account is deleted.

Moreover, congressional hearings and a subsequent joint investigation by the House Oversight Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis concluded that ID.me deliberately misled federal agencies, downplayed system failures, and exaggerated pandemic fraud to secure lucrative government contracts. As a result, the IRS scrapped its plan to force all taxpayers to scan their faces using ID.me. Multiple federal agencies that were expanding contracts with the company halted or severely scaled down their reliance on the software. And yet, despite these mistakes, false representations, and cancellations, Treasury Direct has not only decided to proceed with this vendor and mandate its exclusive use, it has thus far declined to offer an alternative integration with Login.gov—the government's own secure, unified single sign-on platform. 

Given past mistakes and trust issues, forcing people to exclusively use an ID.me account for TreasuryDirect access is deeply problematic and the announced plan should be modified to address these concerns.

We, the undersigned American Treasury Direct investors, savings bond holders, and taxpayers, urge the U.S. Department of the Treasury to immediately halt the mandatory October 28, 2026 deadline and implement the following plan adjustments:

• Extend the ID.me account window until April 16, 2027 to ensure all citizens are thoroughly informed and capable of registering without facing immediate account lockouts or being prevented from accessing their 1099 forms when preparing their 2026 tax returns.
• Allow users to maintain access to their portfolios by grandfathering in their existing traditional accounts for at least one year.
• Offer an official government alternative to ID.me by integrating Login.gov accounts as a primary identity verification option, keeping public assets tied directly to public infrastructure.
• Create a secure, alternative pathway for account holders to retrieve their 1099 tax documentation without being forced to register with a private third-party contractor.

Please sign this petition to safeguard investor privacy, protect civil liberties, and ensure that access to government savings remains fair, open, and secure for all Americans.