Faced with the resurgence of scams and fake profiles, LinkedIn is setting up an account certification badge system: a free device to control the identity and activity of users of the professional social network.
Social networks play an important role in career development. Before hiring an employee, companies do not hesitate to search the digital life of candidates and find a lot of information on their different profiles. Similarly, employees like to learn about the people they work with. And in this area, LinkedIn, the professional social network, is a must! Indeed, it is an essential tool for keeping in touch with colleagues and clients, finding a new job, gaining visibility and keeping up to date with news in your sector of activity. However, despite its apparent safety, many scams abound there, especially in these times of crisis, as evidenced by the false job offers spotted in recent times.
To make the social network more secure and guarantee the reliability of the community, Microsoft has decided to implement a verification system so that users can prove their identity and the fact that they work for the employer displayed on their profile. . This will result in a certification badge, as announced by the company in its blog post published on April 12. But unlike the Meta Verified badges for Instagram and Facebook and the famous blue badge for Twitter, the one for LinkedIn will be completely free. It will make it easier to gain the trust of other professionals and to further avoid scams and fake accounts that abound on the social network.
LinkedIn badge: several ways to prove your identity
Microsoft offers several ways to prove your identity on LinkedIn. The first is to verify your workplace through your company’s email address, provided it is one of the 4,000 that are currently supported by the verification system. LinkedIn plans to expand this feature to more companies and expand the eligibility criteria. In the United States, users can also go through the CLEAR fee-based identification system by providing US government-issued ID and a US phone number.
Finally, around two million users will be able to use the system by the end of April. Microsoft Entered, which issues digital work IDs to employees of participating companies. Note that this system is not limited to LinkedIn since it can also be used by an employee to certify his identity for a bank loan or to obtain reductions related to his company for example. The identification process will be done through the Entra Verified ID platform.
LinkedIn badge: fighting fraud and scams
Verifying the identity of LinkedIn users is a good thing, as recruitment has increasingly been done remotely since the pandemic. However, the platform is home to many fake job offers, with scammers who do not hesitate to create profiles with the photo of the real recruiter of the company they are usurping and to set up a fake recruitment process (see our article). Likewise, many fake profiles are created using artificial intelligence. Their uses can be very varied – but all equally dishonest. Fake job offers to steal information, recruitment scams, classic phishing… The scammers are not lacking in imagination!
“Online authenticity has never been more important”explains Alex Weinert, vice president of identity security at Microsoft, in an interview with The Verge. “We’ve seen a steady increase in fraudulent introductions, with people posing as who they’re not, in all sorts of different forms. You really want to know that if you’re interacting with someone who says they’re employed by a certain company or representing a certain company, you can trust the person they claim to be. The need for such a measure is obvious”. Microsoft plans to expand “the availability and means for you to participate over time“.