Refusing LinkedIn's ID verification is costing me my job
A long, complicated story, summarized: (apart from Tildes, on which I lurk) I swore off all social media years ago. Then my job required that I have an account on LinkedIn. I reconsidered, and attempted to make the least disclosive account possible in an effort to protect my privacy. Things aren't going well. Despite logging in with the correct credentials, on the same device, using the same browser; and with access to my signup email, and access to the phone I used to enroll, LinkedIn has flagged my account the second time I tried using it and now requires me to upload images of myself and my government ID to regain access to their cesspool. Are you familiar with their protocols and can share insights, so that if I start again I don't face the same problem?
I have read what LinkedIn says and I have read discussions on Reddit on the topic. LinkedIn says you can opt to "use your work email" or mail them an affidavit. These options were not given to me. Everyone else I have seen reporting facing this seems to have triggered the system by losing their login credentials or moving countries; what brought this upon me and can I avoid it?
- Is it that I use a VPN, and it may have routed through a different IP address on the second login?
- I use an email alias. Is LinkedIn purging accounts with email domains that offer aliases?
- Is it a result of clearing cookies?
- Is it easier to maintain a Google account (!) which LinkedIn allows as login without this ID thing coming up?
Please be gentle with your advice as I am kind of panicking.
Much like you're creating a LinkedIn account for your job and for no other purpose, what is the concern with creating a Gmail account similarly for this single use, and never connecting it to anything else?
Oh, I didn't mean to suggest I wouldn't create a Google account. Perhaps my parenthetical exclamation point was misleading: I added it to demonstrate my surprise that the Google account I'm contemplating might be less invasive than LinkedIn. What I am wondering is if having the Google account will satisfy LinkedIn. If so, I might do that, even though I would rather not. I worry that something else will trigger this ID request again, though.
No explicit experience with LinkedIn so this is a bit more general. Social media platforms are very likely to flag you for additional verification, shadowbans, etc. when using a VPN, especially if you're registering with them (rather than using one after registering on a residential IP.) In my experience, they are often more trusting of Google (or other SSO) accounts. There's no guarantee Google won't eventually also lock you out of your account without additional verification. The most Google has asked of me when a throwaway account is flagged for this is to verify a phone number. Less invasive than a copy of your ID, but trivial for Google to tie back to a significant amount of your personal data. In my uses (non-professional, throwaway stuff) it's no problem to simply ditch the account. Obviously this would potentially be more impactful in your case if you weren't comfortable providing your phone number.
As a test, I just created a Google account on a VPN using only my first name. It didn't even request a phone number. What is this, Bizzaro world??? Unbelievable. (Would it work again? I wonder if I was wrong to delete it.)
Google is often seemingly lax on account creation. I've only encountered issues creating new accounts when creating several in a short timespan. I'm sure they're still doing a lot of anti spam stuff behind the scenes, but the previously mentioned phone number verification is the only explicit "give us your information" prompt I've been met with, and that mostly seems to happen to me when attempting to log in after a long period of inactivity.
I have no idea what specifics would get your Google account flagged. I assume there's a whole market for that knowledge in the
spamSEO industry. I just wanted to make you aware of the potential risk if this is an account your career would somehow depend on.LinkedIn now has a "Verified" status that requires a government ID or work email. It's not great.
I wonder how hard it would be to create a shell company and email based off of that, and have that accepted.
Of course this could bring in other complications.
I gave Facebook a photoshopped photo of my ID with a different name and ID number attached in an effort to keep a pseudonym. Perhaps you don't have to give them the right information, just the information they're looking for.
I did this a while back for a lot of friends with fake Facebook names when Facebook was harassing them about it.
I did it for myself too.
This is why I basically think these ID laws are stupid, unless they cross check IDs with state databases, which from what I can tell they dont. Most people can just use photoshopped IDs.
I laughed because there's going to be a huge fake ID surge when all these sites start asking for IDs.
This is just a recommendation not to do a felony for Facebook or whatever site it is.
Yeah, you bet. On the LinkedIn front, my only concern would be with companies trying to match profile pictures with ID photos. Facial recognition opened up a whole new category of difficulty when it comes to trying to fool these things.
I routinely use a VPN to connect to LinkedIn to search for jobs and read deranged AI takes from hypemen, but I've never been asked for my ID.
Thanks, this gave me a chuckle. I know this is only one data point, but it's good to know that a VPN alone might not trigger the ID thing in every case.
I don't use a VPN and have never been asked for an ID.
Unless you work for LinkedIn itself, why would any job require a LinkedIn account? That's insane. Is there no way to opt out of it? Could try speaking with HR and see if they could make an exception
I agree with you, but I assure you I will not be able to continue in my position if I refuse the account altogether. Happy to answer more in private messages, but I should avoid sharing identifying circumstances in this thread.
Quite possible they are in recruiting and required to use the platform to engage with candidates etc
Have you considered having a second computer you set up like you're a conventional user? Have your main machine to use for everything except LinkedIn, and reformat an old computer sitting in your closet or buy a cheap netbook to use on the side with no VPN or privacy protections enabled just for keeping a LinkedIn account and a Google account to log into it with. It's a PITA, but it's likely a better situation than needing to look for a new job.
In my experience, maintaining any privacy safeguards on your end will lock you out of most of the post-centralization Web 2.0. Even if you sent LinkedIn photos of your government ID (please don't do this) and managed to get your verification processed, something else would surely break further down the line.
I've decided to run a virtual machine for Google/LinkedIn. I will fire it up, connect to a local college's free network, search for local things on Google to set cookies, create a Google account, and then link a new LinkedIn profile. I just hope I can use a VPN thereafter, as it seems others do. I can leave the cookies on the virtual machine and only fire it up when needed, I guess.
I had come across this when I was helping someone with their LinkedIn account and once they ask for identity verification, there's no way to get around it even logging in from another device, you're basically locked out until you verify. This was a new account, so there wasn't much there and I think their overenthusiastic request sending flagged their bot filters, but they had to start another one. They also did not have a way to identify using the work email because it wasn't added before, so if you are starting a new account, I would add that and keep just in case along with a phone number if you can because their support and help resources are pretty much useless.
It could be 1 or 3. Or a browser extension blocking a call to an endpoint, or even certain browser settings?
Unfortunately I think you're going to encounter this sort of thing, if not on Linkedin, at least definitely on Google, so you're only moving the issue around. I'm not sure how you're going to solve the problem without having to expose yourself (eventually) to this sort of invasiveness.
Thanks for thinking of the browser extension. It's possible, though I can't check any longer. I left social media because of things like this, but I was naive enough not to expect that LinkedIn was vacuuming up everyone's passports and driver's licenses.
Have you attempted to contact linked in support? And did you give a reason you couldn’t connect your work email? It seems like if it’s for work you can use your work email… or have IT create an email alias for you. At work I was given the standard email and I asked IT to use a more generic alias and they got it to me rather quickly.