Washington DC - The Internal Revenue Service is backing off facial recognition technology after taking heavy fire for contracting with a private company that verifies taxpayers' identity.

The IRS took taxpayers and tech experts on a wild ride over the past couple of weeks.

It started with the announcement that ID.me, a third-party company, would take over ID verification for the government agency.

That sparked a great deal of pushback, especially because of concerns over the safety of taxpayers' biometric data and problems with ease of access for people who aren't super internet or device savvy.

Then the sparks turned into flames when ID.me let slip that it doesn't just compare the picture on users' photo ID with a selfie face scan. Instead, the company actually has a facial scan database, and compares would-be taxpayers against the collection of scanned faces.

Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon and chair of the Senate Finance Committee, then waded into the fray. On Wednesday, he sent the IRS a letter and demanded an end to the plans to use facial recognition for ID verification. "Americans shouldn't have to sacrifice their privacy for security," Wyden tweeted.

Following the announcement in the IRS's change of plans, the senator added: "This is big: The IRS has notified my office it plans to transition away from using facial recognition verification, as I requested earlier today."

Now that the IRS is moving away from facial recognition, it will likely face scrutiny on the alternatives it comes up with for ID verification.