🐈
» Support » Product Release Notes » Further expanding the Identity Verified badge
Page options

Further expanding the Identity Verified badge

jcheneo
Community Member

Hi everyone:

 

I'm Jeff Chen, the head of Trust & Safety at Upwork. My job – for the 6+ years I’ve been working here – has been to help ensure that Upwork is a safe place for freelancers and clients to get work done together.

 

We recently launched the Identity Verified badge this January, which enables freelancers to show on their profiles that they’ve verified their identity. This is available to all Top Rated freelancers. Freelancers become Identity Verified after successfully completing both a secure government ID scan and a live video verification chat.

 

ID verified badge hover.png

We’ve heard from those who are not yet eligible to become Identity Verified that you’d like to have the option to verify your identity for the badge. We’ve also heard concerns from some of you that a slow rollout can give those who are Identity Verified an unfair advantage since they may be able to more effectively market their services to potential clients. To address these concerns, my team will be expanding this badge to non-Top Rated freelancers on Upwork, and we’ll do this as quickly as our resources allow.

 

As a reminder, we extend invitations to batches of freelancers almost daily. We cannot badge all freelancers at once, as we do not have the capacity to verify all freelancers at once. That’s why we started with Top Rated freelancers.

 

When you’re eligible for an Identity Verified badge, you’ll be notified when you log onto Upwork. Note that those who are new to the Top Rated program will be invited to verify their identities for the badge around a week after joining, not instantly.

 

We are committed to constantly providing services to improve the success of freelancers on Upwork. As always, please continue sharing your feedback with us and let us know if you ever have any questions.

11 Comments
jcheneo
Community Member

Hi Jess,

 

This previous forum post will give you an idea why we keep the headshot after the initial verification. Unlike in a bar, when people verify on Upwork, there is a chance they could sell their account and that undermines all the legitimate freelancers who put in hard and honest work to build a solid portfolio and reputation on Upwork. And it's also a bad experience for a client who thinks they are working with someone and finding out it's someone else.