X, formerly Twitter, has launched identity-based government account verification for paid users to prevent impersonation and give them benefits like “priority support.”
The social network has entered into a partnership with its headquarters in Israel Au10tix Identity verification solutions. The identity verification pop-up indicates that Au10tix can store this data for up to 30 days.
X Support page for verification It notes that while identity verification is available in “many countries,” it is not available in the European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA), and the United Kingdom. This is mostly due to the region’s strict data protection laws.
Identity-based verification appears to be a prior step that currently yields almost no benefits. The company said it may determine the age of some content based on the age derived from the identifier.
“X is currently focused on account authentication to prevent impersonation and may explore additional measures, such as ensuring users have access to age-appropriate content and protecting against spam and malicious accounts, to maintain the integrity of the platform and protect healthy conversations,” it said. .
Users who pass the verification badge will have a note saying their government ID has been verified. But you can only see it when you click on the blue check mark on the profile page. The company also said that users with identity verification will get “priority support from X Services,” but it’s hard to understand what that means.
It is worth noting that last month, the company introduced a way for paid users to hide their check marks from their profiles.
X said that in the future, it plans to speed up the process of reviewing checkmarks if a user verifies their identities. In addition, they will be able to make frequent changes to their names, usernames or profile pictures without losing the checkmark.
The company currently offers identity verification to paid users only. Ironically, X talks about reducing impersonation and spam but does not offer verification tools for all users.
In April, Twitter discontinued its legacy verification program and removed check marks from accounts. But since that was causing a lot of chaos, the company has repositioned the check mark for the top accounts.
Last month, the social network changed its privacy policy to add that it has the ability to capture users’ biometric data, education and employment history.
“This will also help us link an account to a real person, for those who choose to, through government-issued ID processing,” X said in a statement to Bloomberg at the time. “This will also help X fight impersonation attempts and make the platform more secure.”