Twitter Blue verification on X (formerly Twitter) will now require the user to supply the platform with a selfie alongside a photo of a government-verified ID, according to a Sunday report by PC Magazine.
The new verification process will be made possible with the help of Israeli AU10TIX software.
Users will have to agree to have their details stored for up to 30 days and for AU10TIX to also have access to the information. This is on top of the monthly subscription fee which was imposed on verified users last year.
X has claimed that the information will be collected “for the purposes of safety and security, including preventing impersonation” and does not carry any malicious intent.
Scammers have been taking advantage of the current verification process
Scammers have been using the relative ease of purchasing the ‘blue check’ to increase the effectiveness of their attacks, as reported by Protos online. By pairing a blue check with a name deceptively similar to famous people or companies, the scammers have used verification to convince primarily very young or very old users into handing over personal information, a type of scam known as phishing.
The move comes after a series of incidents in which multiple individuals and companies had their identities impersonated on X after early changes brought by Elon Musk meant that verification was simply a matter of paying for a subscription.
First uncovered by the X user Nima Owji, the first to notice the ID verification on Musk’s own profile, he uploaded a screenshot of a message presented by the app seeming to confirm these claims.
#X keeps working on the ID verification. You should upload a photo of your ID and take a live selfie. https://t.co/3bdGgzlnZh pic.twitter.com/F4ssglakHR
— Nima Owji (@nima_owji) August 16, 2023
AU10TIX did not respond to a request for comment from the online tech news site Engadget. The company specializes in airport security and can provide “eight-second verification without even partial human involvement” according to their website.
X also did not respond to requests for comment either.
The intention appears to be to roll out these new conditions soon, with Musk himself having ID verification as of August 1, 2023.
