After a successful few months, we’re now ready to roll out Author ID checks to new authors across the other marketplaces!
For the next stage, as with the first, new authors will undertake the ID check process when their first item is approved.
We expect to have new authors across all marketplaces moving through this process by the end of the year.
We’re happy to be working with Jumio for our ID checks - one of the world’s leading end to end ID verification solutions.
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.
Hi @purplefog, yes that is the plan. We’ve started with new authors first as part of a staged approach. Next step will be verifying the identity of all current authors. Cam
Thank you. This, along with the revamped submission criteria, will both prove to be positive changes for AJ. I’m glad Envato are being more proactive in attempting to improve the experience for both authors and the customer base.
This sounds great. We’ve never worked with Jumio (so we’re not familiar with the process) - but from a quick Google search it looks like they scan your face against one of your ids… but how will this work for authors that are a Business entity? For example we the humans AJ & Kyla run our account, but for tax and legal purposes we’re a registered LLC. Will we verify one of our identities? Or our business identity?
Hi @WPExplorer - Thanks so much for the question - Even if you’re registered as a Business Entity for tax and legal purposes, we collect an individual first and last name as the account holder. We’ll be asking the account holder to complete the ID check.
What happens if someone submits the same ID for 3 accounts? How will you police this?
Since you are using third party service (Jumio), do you get notified in such cases that the ID was already submitted for previous account?
I hope it’s not enough to just submit ID and carry on, and you get notified if someone tries to submit the same ID on multiple accounts. Or Jumio can block such actions?
I hope you are aware that Jumio is a company that values privacy and takes security with full seriousness. You can’t imagine they have a huge folder on their desktop labeled “Shh, ID cards of Planet Earth”. What happens with multiple accounts linked to multiple ID’s is something that will most certainly be discussed and placed in Terms as soon the verification for all authors begins ( unconfirmed, my opinion ) but, in all seriousness, if you’re a legitimate author, with a legitimate company, with the full intent of taking care of your customers, you have nothing to fear from an ID check, but, quite the contrary, you should be relieved that Authors that aren’t so well intended as us, will be found and disposed of. Therefore, the marketplace quality will increase significantly based purely on the fact that authors are checked, verified, and can’t do cheeky stuff!
I am and I am not afraid, I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.
Like I said, I only hope this change will truly serve its purpose. I don’t know how it will work, but I hope that submitting the ID second or third time will be impossible and reviewed properly.
I’m not talking at all about this, I have no doubts about Jumio’s competency and seriousness.
No need for your sarcastic and patronizing remarks about that.
I’m worried how Envato will handle this on their side. There is a lot of fraudulent activity going on in the market, and sadly I get the impression that big part of it is ignored and these authors are still selling normally even after being reported multiple times.
So I hope this will truly serve it’s purpose and there will be either some automated system that blocks accounts with the same ID submitted on multiple accounts or it will be reviewed rigorously by Envato staff on each ID submission.
This is one of the best steps Envato has taken lately, and I hope it will work flawlessly
So my question to Envato is, how will this exactly work and what stops me from submitting the same ID on 5 accounts? Will I be automatically ready to submit music once Jumio confirms my ID is real and valid or will it be checked for duplicates already submitted on Envato?
I think you’re just a little don’t trust of Envato’s steps. It wouldn’t make sense to Envato doing so, if it didn’t have a solid construction underneath! I think that they had everything thought out in advance, who and how will check heaps of duplicate accounts!
Will Envato check all existing profiles for author ID? What if a person has 10 profiles with 100 items on each? There would be 1000 items that belongs to 1 person. If you let only 1 exclusive and 1 non exclusive profile, will you be ready to delete the rest 8 profiles with another 800 items which generate sales? What will you do if you find an author with more than 2 profiles?
@ steve_lam
Great step! Waiting for verification for all authors and actions for non legal multiply accounts! I hope Envato will improve this, because it’s very difficult to work for authors who honestly follow all rules, when 90% of authors brake it.
