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colettelewis
Community Member

Police statements and other confidential documents

There is a client on Upwork - perhaps a farmer, perhaps a translation agency - who posts translation  jobs involving police documents (not confined to one country) that include details of the alleged felons: their full names, addresses, statements, and copies of their IDs. These files are posted publicly on Upwork via Dropbox. 

 

I have reported one job, others have already been posted and completed.  I would have thought that  this is a serious violation of Upwork's ToS - or is it anything goes these days? 

20 REPLIES 20
BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Nichola,

 

I received your PM, I'll be sure to escalate this report to the correct team for further review.

 

Thank you!

~ Bojan
Upwork

Interesting.  If these are already public records, I would assume it was okay but it sort of doesn't pass the smell test for me.

lysis10
Community Member

I've always said Upwork data entry category is the perfect place to collect private info. Just do a search for something like data entry and medical or financial and there are interesting things to be found.

The job has been set to private, which doesn't make it much less public, and the client doesn't even ask for an NDA. 

I think I saw the job yesterday evening. I was too busy to report it, but I was amazed to see so much confidential infomation just thrown out to whoever was interested in seing what the job was about. And I was expecting Nichola to comment about it.

 

I've had a few jobs where I didn't sign an NDA and had full access to all kinds of documents.  One of them them was over 2000 files of people applying for loans.  Tax returns, driver's licenses, bank statements, you name it.

Good thing they choose me instead of someone with bad intentions. 🙂


Julie J wrote:

I've had a few jobs where I didn't sign an NDA and had full access to all kinds of documents.  One of them them was over 2000 files of people applying for loans.  Tax returns, driver's licenses, bank statements, you name it.

Good thing they choose me instead of someone with bad intentions. 🙂


There is a difference between sharing personal data of third parties that is needed for work with a freelancer once a contract is in place and just sharing them with the world.

 

There is this passage in the ToS people tent to ignore: 4. PROHIBITED SITE USES
It says:
Posting identifying information concerning another person;

Many police documents are public records. I haven't seen what the original poster is talking about, so I am not going to make any comment about that. But just because a document is a police document with names in it, it does not mean that any rules are being broken if the document is shared publicly. It would depend on the document.

 

I would generally defer to the judgement of the people who generate and oversee those documents officially, as long as they understand how Upwork works. Maybe they don't...

 

If a client is posting documents as part of job postings, they may very not consider this to be "posting something publicly" or "publishing something." Even though in effect, that is what is happening. They are probably just trying to get some work done, and they aren't fully aware of all the implications of attaching a document to a job posting.

 

This may be an opportunity for Upwork to improve its client-side tools and messaging, and an opportunity to inform individual clients about how to do things in a better way.


Preston H wrote:

Many police documents are public records.


Not in most countries and it is entirely irrelevant because it's a ToS violation anyway.

 


Preston H wrote:

But just because a document is a police document with names in it, it does not mean that any rules are being broken of the document is shared publicly.


Nonsense. "any rules" includes the ToS and those are certainly violated in this case. 


So such jobs violate the ToS and all sorts of privacy laws.

Just thinking aloud, but if it's police reports where there is a 911 caller, the caller is supposed to be blanked out. Doubtful whoever is posting these is doing that.


Jennifer M wrote:

Just thinking aloud, but if it's police reports where there is a 911 caller, the caller is supposed to be blanked out. Doubtful whoever is posting these is doing that.


As I said before, I was in too much of a hurry to take the time to really read the documents. But there was a sort of diary about what happened, and at what time. Well, the accused spent 10 minutes in the loo. Wonder what the problem was.


Luce N wrote:


As I said before, I was in too much of a hurry to take the time to really read the documents. But there was a sort of diary about what happened, and at what time. Well, the accused spent 10 minutes in the loo. Wonder what the problem was.


Yeah, sounds like a police report especially if it explains what the cop saw and who he talked to and all that fun stuff. If I go searching for fraud around here, it gets me all mad at all the auto acceptedcels, so I just try to stick my head in the sand so I can stay happy. lol Ignorance is definitely bliss.


Jennifer M wrote:


Yeah, sounds like a police report especially if it explains what the cop saw and who he talked to and all that fun stuff. If I go searching for fraud around here, it gets me all mad at all the auto acceptedcels, so I just try to stick my head in the sand so I can stay happy. lol Ignorance is definitely bliss.


Well, do you know how they get the time to write such precise reports? Do they record themselves, do they phone someone who types the report?

"10:10 to 10:20" X just spent 10 minutes in the toilet. Over."

Plain weird, in my opinion.


Luce N wrote:

Jennifer M wrote:

Just thinking aloud, but if it's police reports where there is a 911 caller, the caller is supposed to be blanked out. Doubtful whoever is posting these is doing that.


As I said before, I was in too much of a hurry to take the time to really read the documents. But there was a sort of diary about what happened, and at what time. Well, the accused spent 10 minutes in the loo. Wonder what the problem was.


_______________________________

He was in the loo, because he was drinking lots of water as he was on a DUI charge among other things. 

 



Nichola L wrote:

He was in the loo, because he was drinking lots of water as he was on a DUI charge among other things. 

 


Gross!
So you did have the time to read the documents...


Luce N wrote:

Jennifer M wrote:

Just thinking aloud, but if it's police reports where there is a 911 caller, the caller is supposed to be blanked out. Doubtful whoever is posting these is doing that.


As I said before, I was in too much of a hurry to take the time to really read the documents. But there was a sort of diary about what happened, and at what time. Well, the accused spent 10 minutes in the loo. Wonder what the problem was.


10 minutes? I guess he was on twitter. Was this by any chance an impeachment proceeding?


Julie J wrote:

I've had a few jobs where I didn't sign an NDA and had full access to all kinds of documents.  One of them them was over 2000 files of people applying for loans.  Tax returns, driver's licenses, bank statements, you name it.

Good thing they choose me instead of someone with bad intentions. 🙂


lol Same here. I had medical records. The issue was no NDA and it was hourly and I used tracker. Sorry patients, but my income is more important so I used Tracker. Kinda sucks but I wasn't about to risk my money over it. Definitely a HIPAA violaiton though.

a_lipsey
Community Member


Jennifer M wrote:

Julie J wrote:

I've had a few jobs where I didn't sign an NDA and had full access to all kinds of documents.  One of them them was over 2000 files of people applying for loans.  Tax returns, driver's licenses, bank statements, you name it.

Good thing they choose me instead of someone with bad intentions. 🙂


lol Same here. I had medical records. The issue was no NDA and it was hourly and I used tracker. Sorry patients, but my income is more important so I used Tracker. Kinda sucks but I wasn't about to risk my money over it. Definitely a HIPAA violaiton though.


At least you know it's HIPAA and not HIPPA. Smiley LOL

I'm a nerd and I listen to the police scanner where they say people's names and what they are up to.  It's very entertaining! 🙂

I like watching "Law & Order".

 

I like how whenever they show the screen before an episode starts claiming that the following story is fictional and not based on real events... that you know the episode is NOT fiction and IS based on real events.

 

Good fun.

On "Law & Order," they do change the names of the peope involved. But we know who they really are.

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