Author ID checks for AudioJungle Authors coming soon - early access now closed.

Envato Announcements
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Hi all. Author ID checks for AudioJungle Authors will be available soon - this thread has all you need to know about the process.

What’s happening?

We will be rolling out ID verification for AudioJungle authors over the next few months.

If you’re ready to complete your ID check right now, you can request early access by completing this form (UPDATE June 14: the Early Access form is now closed). You will receive an email with instructions on how to access and complete the check within a week of submitting the form.

Please note that an ID check has to be completed for every account you own - this means that if you have two accounts (e.g. Account1 & Account1_nonexclusive), you will need to verify your ID for both accounts separately. To streamline this process we ask you to list all your accounts when filling out the form.

If you don’t fill out the form and complete your ID check before the main rollout commences, please don’t worry! We will send you further instructions closer to the time on how to access and complete your check.

We previously announced the introduction of Author ID here when the process began for new Envato Author accounts, rolling out ID checks to all ThemeForest authors and CodeCanyon authors in late 2021, VideoHive authors in January 2022 and GraphicRiver authors in February 2022 . We’re now including AudioJungle authors in this process.

FAQs

What’s an Author ID check?

An Author ID check confirms the identities of our authors, requiring photo ID documents and a photo (selfie) of the account owner. This provides a trusted environment for our customers and authors to conduct business, and maintain the success of our community.

We work with Jumio to conduct these ID checks - one of the world’s leading end-to-end ID verification solutions. Your privacy and security is our highest priority, and we use multiple safeguards (technical, procedural, and physical) to ensure the safety and integrity of your data

We believe that these checks help to protect both authors and customers. Customers can have more confidence when purchasing items, and authors can benefit from knowing that they’re working in a more trustworthy marketplace - this levels the playing field for all authors in the community.

My account is already verified - am I affected?

Many authors have already successfully completed an Author ID check. If you have already received confirmation from Envato that your account is verified, you won’t need to complete a new check for that account.

Please note that an ID check must be completed for every account you own. This means that if for example you have two accounts Account1 & Account1_nonexclusive, and Account1 has been previously verified, you will still need to verify your ID for the other account, Account1_nonexclusive.

Where can I find more information?

For more information, please see our Help Centre article on Author ID Checks - we’ll be keeping this up to date with answers to all frequently-asked questions about the process.

If you’ve checked that Help Centre article and still have any questions, please ask them here.

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Hey. I don’t remember is my account verified or not. Where can i check that out? Thanks.

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Hello. A few years ago I already passed some kind of test, maybe this was it. How can I find out the status of my account?

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Check the history in your email by keywords: Envato id check

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Other options?

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I of course delete all my emails at least once in a month :rofl: :joy:

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Can a valid UK driving license be used also I do not have a camera on my computer as I do not take selfies - too old for that, what do I do.

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Hi all! If you think you may have already verified your account, you can check the verification status of your account via the following process:

Go to https://verify.envato.com/ and log in with your Envato username and password for each of your accounts. If you have more that one ID check in your history, you will only need to check the status of the most recent one. The verification status results are as follows:

  • Open - you have an open ID check ready to start
  • Verified - your account is verified and you do not have to do anything further
  • Unverified - your account verification was unsuccessful, and you need to request a new ID check
  • Submitted - we are currently reviewing your ID check and you will receive an email from us with the outcome
  • Expired - you did not start the ID check within the designated time frame and you need to request a new ID check
  • You have no Author ID checks - we have not yet initiated an ID check for that account and you can request one from us (using this form for AudioJungle authors).

@gballx A current UK driving licence will be fine for the ID document requirement, but the process also requires a “live” image to compare against the documents you’re using.

You can do this with a smartphone or webcam, if you have access to either - the service we’re using checks that your ID documents are current and valid, and that the person doing that check matches the relevant documents.

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Something about rolling this out across the board just doesn’t pass the smell test. I’ve been selling here for seven years and have no idea what “authors can benefit from knowing that they’re working in a more trustworthy marketplace” is supposed to mean. I haven’t encountered any issues within the marketplace, so what’s the actual issue (or issues) leading to this new requirement?

For anyone tired of being asked to hand over more and more and more private data, what would have been more helpful is to publicize this new requirement and roll it out on Jan. 1. That way, contributors could have a full year of earnings to report for tax purposes (Envato already has all of that info) and then decide what you’re asking for at the start of the new year is too much. Considering all the data breaches affecting governments, banks, a major credit reporting agency, and even an authentication service I previously used to log into this very site, it’s not a great time to require people to transmit even more personal data to you or to a third-party service.

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Nope! There is absolutely no good reason to require sellers to send copies of their photo ID to Envato. They don’t even state any issues that may have spurred this decision on.

I’ll be closing my account and using other services.

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Hello!..please tell me if it is necessary to pass the Author ID to the author who has already submitted all his identity card information, such as passport, photo (selfie) and other necessary data for author registration, which have already been confirmed by you???

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I’m with you on that. Maybe with a little more context, I might understand the decision a little better, but yeah, there isn’t anything that would warrant scooping up all this personal data.

I’d be willing to hop on a video chat and show someone from Envato just my drivers license photo and name, which demonstrates I’m the same person as when I signed up years ago, but that’s about it. We shouldn’t be expected to voluntarily have our documents stored in yet another database that’s just waiting to be exploited. Due to a site that couldn’t safeguard this same sort of info, I’ve already been through a year of credit monitoring and have no interest in increasing the odds of that happening again.

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@stylishproject If you have already completed an Author ID check as part of account creation, you won’t need to complete another check for your account.

We began verifying ownership of all new Envato Market accounts back in October 2020, so many people will have already completed this process. The current stage rolls this out to established accounts on AudioJungle - as that’s such a large cohort, we’ll be processing these over a few months to allow the team to work through them all.

@kilmermedia We don’t store any copies of these documents after the check is completed - just the status of the ID check for each account (verified/unverified/etc), as listed above. You can find more information about the service provider that we’re using here, including their security compliance accreditation.

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Even if Envato doesn’t retain the documents, can you say with absolute certainty what Jumio does and doesn’t do with it? They’ve settled lawsuits - and have at least one going right now - concerning the collection and storage of biometric data. Part of the problem these days is that we get to wade through all the legalese and come away believing companies are expunging the raw data, then find our personal info has been compromised. It’s been pretty casual to ask for biometric and personal data from, what, some-80,000 people? If this were a common practice in this industry, maybe it would feel different, but it’s not, and we shouldn’t ever get to that point.

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Let me think of a few

  • Copyright infringements that can take you to court for stealing copyrighted material
  • Fictitious invoices, fictitious companies, fictitious names.
  • Scamming buyers / selling copyright infringing material.
  • Money Laundering and Tax Evasion

So yeah, absolutely no good reason (insert sarcasm) - it’s better buyers don’t get any protection, authors don’t get any protection, and Envato becomes a breeding ground for tax evasion and money laundering.

Sorry for the sarcasm, but I’m really shocked you could say “there’s no good reason”, when honestly, if you’re running a legitimate business and you really create everything you sell, you have every reason to agree with this. As it will weed out all those who have foul intentions!

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If Envato believes this is the definitive solution to the dark web kind of stuff you seemingly alluded is a big problem on this marketplace, will they soon be changing the Terms of Service by starting to assume responsibility for all files approved for sale here? Given your authority, a simple “yes” or “no” answer works best.

The same idea goes for Jumio… Does Envato guarantee all biometric data transmitted by contributors to its Silicon Valley business partner will be kept out of reach from hackers, for the entire duration of the contract? Here, as well, “yes” or “no” from anyone with that insight provides the greatest level of trustworthiness that’s the primary issue here.

Envato, I’d like to continue to do business on this service. However, you’re surely going to “weed out” (your moderator’s wording) a mix of nefarious and honest contributors. In this case, check my IP history and tax documents - you will only find that this particular contributor has one account, and the 1099s you mail annually have never been kicked back, and for a reason. Sure, you can implement verifications across the board, but if you don’t have any alternative for longstanding contributors with zero issues on the marketplace, that’s when approaching every one of your contributors, both new and old, with suspicion becomes insulting.

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Out of interest what would the alternative be to blanket or consistent checks?

There may even be regulation or other official demands for this level of checks.

Your account, like many others, may well be entirely legit and without issue, but unfortunately that’s one profile from tens of thousands. Manually checking everyone is not feasible, whereas, right or wrong, asking everyone to validate their accounts seems like the most viable and lesser of more evils.

Also this process is not just about past or historic activity - it’s to protect everyone going forward also, making it necessary for the level of scrutiny to be consistent and in place.

I’m sure as far as is possible envato believes and has taken all steps possible so that any data is as secure as it can be, hence the investment in a recognised and leading third party provider in Jumio.

100% certainty of being ‘unhackable’ does not exist - but this is just like how millions of businesses enlist the help of Visa, PayPal, or Mastercard to help protect their payments and buyers details.

It doesn’t guarantee that things will never go wrong, and there will always be legal suits or people unhappy with something, but it remains a recognised and positive move by envato with the best possible intention.

As above - If you could share alternative solutions i’m certain that envato be very grateful to hear them

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Dear Ben,

I was just confused and I was not sure If I had verified my account before.

So I clicked the first link in your message up / If you’re ready to complete your ID check right now, you can request early access by completing this form )

But I wanted to be sure If I verified account before so I followed your second message

( Go to https://verify.envato.com/ and log in with your Envato username and password for each of your accounts. If you have more that one ID check in your history, you will only need to check the status of the most recent one. The verification status results are as follows:)

Now I can see that I have verified my account in 2020.

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But I do not know what to do now because I have it verified accout before but also I have started it again using the link ( If you’re ready to complete your ID check right now, you can request early access by completing this form )

Can you help me please ? Thank you so much :slight_smile:

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Sure - the most basic measure would be to require the third party company to expunge any personal or biometric data after IDs are verified. Fortunately, the state where I reside has a bill going through the legislature, which would require such companies publish guidelines for having the information permanently destroyed.

As mentioned before, my data has been part of a previous hack, and the more we casually submit to this sort of info siphoning and retention, the greater the odds we end up victims of identity theft. The general disinterest in such matters is somewhat surprising but, you know, if earnings are at stake and corporation X uses the service, then maybe people find justification.

I’d really love to hear from someone at Envato what their view is for why, that I’m aware of, no other stock site has brought in another company to analyze and hold onto our personal data. The sarcastic, money laundering/tax evasion/scamming response from one moderator to another user felt a little hyperbolic, and I would be interested to know if they also feel that’s the type of site they’ve been operating for 15 years, or if it’s overblown.

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@LukePN - thanks for checking! Your account is already verified, so you won’t need to do another check.

Before any ID checks are sent out, our team looks at the verification status of each account - so even if you’ve filled out the Early Access form, you won’t need to complete another check for your account.

@kilmermedia I understand your concerns, particularly if you’ve been affected by a data breach in the past. We have robust contractural arrangements in place with Jumio, including a data processing agreement, under which Jumio may only use this data for the express purpose of providing verification services to Envato. In addition, Jumio is contractually obligated to permanently delete all author data after 30 days, or immediately upon request.

We’re taking a uniform approach to verifying all author accounts, as we want to apply these evenly and fairly across all our platforms. The scale we’re operating at makes it impossible for our Author Support team to create individual exceptions such as video calls: Envato Market currently has a little over 65,000 active Author accounts, and those are registered in over 100 countries. Our support team aren’t specialists in handling or verifying such a large range of identity documents, which is why we have employed Jumio as specialists in this field.

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