Published Date : 10/3/2025Â
The U.S. government’s lapse in congressional funding has produced a patchwork of stoppages and slowdowns across federal systems that hinge on biometrics and digital identity. Some high-visibility programs are fully suspended; others are operating under “excepted” status with fewer staff and longer delays.
The clearest shutdowns so far are at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) where the government’s gold-standard biometric evaluations have been taken offline, and at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) E-Verify program, which is unavailable to employers.
Meanwhile, credentialing centers that enroll federal workers for PIV cards are warning of limited coverage or closures. At the same time, frontline border and aviation screening are continuing, albeit with the strains that come with extended operations during a shutdown.
The most consequential pause for the biometrics industry is at NIST. The agency has posted an explicit banner stating that its Face Recognition Technology Evaluation (FRTE), Face Analysis Technology Evaluation (FATE), and iris evaluation (IREX) are suspended for the duration of the shutdown, with no submissions processed and no inquiries answered until funding resumes. For companies that time product launches, accuracy claims, or sales cycles to new leaderboard results, the stoppage freezes a primary yardstick of performance and a key source of marketing validation. That affects a broad swath of face and iris vendors that regularly participate in NIST testing.
E-Verify, the employment eligibility system used by millions of workers and hundreds of thousands of participating employers, is also down. USCIS has placed an “E-Verify is Temporarily Unavailable” notice on its program pages and on the public E-Verify site, reflecting the program’s reliance on annual appropriations rather than user fees. In practical terms, employers cannot create new cases, resolve tentative nonconfirmations, enroll new accounts, or access case data while the system is offline. Advisories emphasize that standard Form I-9 obligations still apply and that, consistent with prior shutdowns, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) suspends E-Verify’s three-day case-creation deadline and tolls the clock on mismatch resolution until the system returns. For HR platforms and employer agents that integrate directly with E-Verify’s APIs, this means building queues and preparing for a surge of backlogged submissions once funding is restored.
Not everything tied to biometrics is shuttered. USCIS’s core casework continues because the agency is primarily fee-funded. That includes routine application processing and the operation of Application Support Centers that capture biometrics, though USCIS has cautioned that dependencies on other agencies or conditions created by the broader shutdown can still introduce delays. In short, while petition adjudications keep moving, some steps that rely on outside systems may slow.
At DHS’s operational components, most frontline screening and enforcement remain “excepted” activities. DHS’s contingency guidance outlines how essential functions continue during a lapse in appropriations and travel reporting this week reflects that Transportation Security Administration officers and other critical staff are working without pay, a dynamic that can stretch operations if the shutdown persists. For the public, that means airports and land borders remain open and biometric traveler screening continues, but protracted shutdowns can translate into longer lines or episodic service disruptions as fatigue and staffing constraints mount.
Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) traveler statistics and advisory pages carry the standard banner noting that sites won’t be actively updated during the lapse, which is a signal of staffing limitations rather than a shutdown of border operations themselves.
One federal identity service that is seeing immediate, tangible effects is the government’s HSPD-12 credentialing network for federal employees and contractors. The General Services Administration (GSA), which oversees USAccess credentialing centers where enrollees provide fingerprints and identity documents for PIV cards, is warning that centers may be operating under limited coverage or closed during the shutdown. Federal workers scheduled for enrollments, activations, or maintenance appointments are being told to check for cancellations and confirm a site’s status before traveling. That translates into potential delays for on- and off-boarding and for routine card maintenance across agencies that rely on USAccess sites.
By contrast, the government’s public authentication hub, Login.gov, has no outage notice and continues to be described in GSA documentation as a shared service with a standing authority to operate. That said, during previous government shutdowns, GSA has prioritized continuity for core services while deferring some noncritical support and feature work. Users should expect the authentication experience to remain available, even if ancillary program updates are slower while the agency manages through the funding gap.
The indirect effects are more diffuse but no less real. TSA and CBP continue biometric screening at checkpoints and ports of entry, which prevents the kind of cascading disruption a full stop would cause, but prolonged shutdowns have historically produced absenteeism and operational stress, and this one begins against a backdrop of national staffing shortfalls in aviation. If the stalemate in Congress lingers, travelers could see longer queues, slower redress, and federal agencies may defer non-urgent technology deployments or data refreshes. Those decisions reverberate into industry roadmaps, especially for airport biometrics and identity-verification pilots that depend on government personnel for testing, data collection, or approvals.
For federal identity credentials, the USAccess warnings translate into concrete scheduling risk for the workforce and for vendors that support identity proofing, card issuance, and lifecycle management. Missed or delayed appointments ripple into delayed building and system access for new hires, postponed renewals for expiring credentials, and slowed remediation when cards or certificates need reissuance. In the private sector, contractors that require timely PIV provisioning to begin work on site can find contract start dates slipping day by day.
If the standoff is resolved quickly, the impact will look like a temporary freeze with a noisy restart. If it doesn’t, watch three pressure points. NIST’s testing calendar, which sets an industry tempo for face and iris claims, will compress, crowding releases later into the year. Employer compliance operations will be juggling paper-first I-9s and pent-up E-Verify submissions, a burden that falls heavily on large onboarding platforms and employer agents. And finally, the longer USAccess sites run on reduced coverage, the more agencies and contractors will slip schedules that depend on PIV enrollments and reissuances. Those are the places where a funding fight spills directly into the identity layer of government services, and into the timelines of the companies that power it.Â
Q: What is the NIST and how is it affected by the funding stalemate?
A: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a government agency that conducts gold-standard biometric evaluations. Due to the funding stalemate, NIST has suspended its Face Recognition Technology Evaluation (FRTE), Face Analysis Technology Evaluation (FATE), and iris evaluation (IREX). This means no submissions are processed and no inquiries are answered until funding resumes.
Q: How does the E-Verify program operate during the shutdown?
A: The E-Verify program, used by employers to verify employment eligibility, is unavailable during the shutdown. Employers cannot create new cases, resolve tentative nonconfirmations, enroll new accounts, or access case data. However, standard Form I-9 obligations still apply, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) suspends E-Verify’s three-day case-creation deadline and tolls the clock on mismatch resolution until the system returns.
Q: What is the status of PIV card enrollment during the shutdown?
A: Credentialing centers that enroll federal workers for PIV cards are operating under limited coverage or are closed. Federal workers scheduled for enrollments, activations, or maintenance appointments should check for cancellations and confirm a site’s status before traveling. This can lead to delays in on- and off-boarding processes and routine card maintenance.
Q: How are frontline border and aviation screening operations affected?
A: Frontline border and aviation screening operations are continuing as “excepted” activities, meaning they are essential and continue to operate. However, extended operations during a shutdown can lead to longer lines or episodic service disruptions due to staffing constraints and fatigue.
Q: What is the impact of the shutdown on Login.gov?
A: Login.gov, the government’s public authentication hub, remains operational during the shutdown. However, some noncritical support and feature updates may be deferred. Users should expect the authentication experience to remain available, but ancillary program updates may be slower.Â