People seeking Illinois unemployment benefits online will soon face additional steps to ensure they’re not using stolen identities.
The Illinois Department of Employment Security and the Illinois Department of Innovation & Technology announced today the “ILogin” system. The system includes safeguards already used by some states and in much of the private sector, such as multifactor authentication (MFA).
Claimants who have previously filed an unemployment insurance claim will be required to complete an account setup process when first accessing ILogin, which will include establishing a new ILogin ID and preferred method of multifactor authentication, which can include an access code received via text message or phone call. The new ILogin account will replace any current IDES username and password and will grant claimants access to their existing IDES account.
New claimants filing an unemployment insurance claim will be required to undergo an identity proofing registration process in addition to completing the account setup process when accessing ILogin. All users, new and existing, must have an email address to register with ILogin and access their account online.
The IDES unemployment insurance system will be the second public facing system to integrate ILogin. Additional State of Illinois applications will also be utilizing ILogin in the coming months which will provide a uniform login process to users who have accounts with multiple state systems.
More information, including how to create a new ILogin account, assistance with forgotten or resetting passwords, and assistance with setting up MFA, can be found on the ILogin FAQ webpage.
The system comes online after IDES said they had stopped over 1.7 million unemployment fraudulent claims in a report released this Spring, and possibly paying billions in fraudulent benefits during the heights of the COVID-19 pandemic over the last year and a half.