What are your thoughts on requiring a contributor to prove their identity bf they upload?  Do you still upload to sites that make you do this?  What is your perception of sites when you see that they do this?  Do you think contributors should have to apply to get accepted or should it be open to all to just upload?   Will a person upload a fake id to get through?  What are other ways a site can safeguard themselves? 

I'd love to hear any of your thoughts and have this be an open discussion for other agencies/sites to join in as well as we are all in this boat together and get burned by image theft or waste our money reviewing and detecting content that is uploaded by a thief.  I have been dealing with one persistent guy who has been uploading stolen images to our site which have been easy to detect (some of you I have emailed specifically about this when I see your images and I have been in contact with 123rf, Photo Stock and Crestock about fake accounts and copyrighted images on their site too so we can join forces in bringing this scumbag down) and I am thinking of implementing this requirement to upload to the site.  Personally, I have resisted and I really hate to do it but would love to hear your thoughts.

What about creating a Wall of Shame that outs these scams, the scammers, their username or registered name, their IP address and any other pertinent information so all agencies and contributors can see what is going on and be on the lookout.  We definitely need a layer of transparency to help everyone avoid this and bust these people. I can't even begin to imagine how much revenue is lost by people due to thieves uploading their material.   

I'll give you an example of a fake account that has sold images at Crestock and needs to be taken offline.  This is definitely not to call out Crestock but to help everyone monitor this better.

http://www.crestock.com/profile/namlehoang22.aspx

I have been in contact with them about this offender and we are working together. We need more of this in the future.

John

In my opinion John it's and excellent idea, by protecting your end you help in protecting us, the contributors, we all need to get together in eliminating the theft and scam problem...
The bottom line is, all of us have to provide government legal ID's on other sites, so I have a good idea that no straight forward professional is going to have a problem with you implementing this regulation at Cutcaster.

Best regards.

Anyone one who expects a professional business that deals courteously and in a timely fashion with them, and pays out regularly and with no issues, yet doesn't want to provide proof of their identity, should just be ignored.

I personally am not sure what providing a copy of someone's I.D. will do - if someone is going to upload work that belongs to others I don't see why they would think twice about providing false identification? Contributors come from all over the world and speak multiple languages - how are you going to know if they have provded you will false ID or not?

For those sites that require identification, I always figured it was largely for tax purposes.

Having said that, I suspect most legitimate contributors would have no problem with it as they have already had to do it for other sites. Personally I don't like it because I really am scared about identity theft and do not like the idea that a company out there in cyberspace has a copy of my vital details ... but I have done it for a couple sites because we had no choice - but I don't like especially and it makes me uncomfortable.

This is a situation in which a professional microstock photographers organization could help.  It could validate the photographers credentials and prosecute criminals.  Legal action needs to be taken against those that steal and resell another's work.  Until that happens, these crooks will just move from ISP/name to another.

Quote from: fullvalue on March 17, 2009, 07:01

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 scammers are always one step ahead.

That last part is what makes me leery of uploading a picture id.  I know some require it for a payout, but how is it protected.  Isn't it asking for trouble to have all that info stored in one place?  Wasn't it one of the biggest of the big 6 that was hacked just a couple of weeks ago?

How will it be protected, John?

I'm all for making it more secure but please do remember that there are people like me out here too.

I don't have a driving license.
I don't have a passport.

I don't have either because I have medical conditions which don't permit me to drive and due to them, I can't work either, hence why my photography sales mean so much to me, it allows me to actually contribute towards the upkeep of my family and as our family are struggling along anyway I can't go and pop �80 out for a passport I'll never travel with, not while there are shoes to buy and mouths to feed.

So by all means, please yes, help to cut down fraud but look into other methods of proving identity too.

I am Canadian and if I remember correctly I sent photo ID to Istock and before I could get paid I also had to mail a completed TD-1 or whatever that employment form number is with my SIN # and tax info on it.  I get a T-4 (earnings) from them every year for taxes.  I doubt they send documents to non-residents though.

Don't you (the agency) require some kind of declaration of citizenship?  Doesn't the IRS care about what Americans earning with your agency?  I would expect that this is the main reason the agencies require id.

And the original question, yes I would have a difficult time uploading ID to just any new agency.  You are quite new, but seem trustworthy.  Maybe you can request it upon the first payment.

If I remember correctly SS requires that the photocopy be mailed in. That would eliminate the "upload" and "online" hacking worries. Particularly if you did a simple background check based on the ID and then stored the paper file, not putting excess info into the database. If memory serves me I had to mail it in with a contributor document that had to be signed. Or was that IS?

I faxed forms to SS.

As a non-American, I didn't have to send a SS number to FT, but remember sending my Drivers License.

Warren, then concider yourself lucky, because as far as I know, you can't even finish your contributors application without the ID pdf copy and on FT it is part of the application's info...Pixart in your case that's probably it, since you're from another country they may have settle with your DL#, concider yourself lucky as well, cause if there is an information that I hate posting on any site is my SS number, to many things going on with identity theft and all.

Best regards.