What Identity Verification DOESN'T Verify

For my 350+ followers on Bredemarket , my 500+ followers on Bredemarket Identity Firm Services , and my 2,800+ followers on my personal John E. Bredehoft profile who will see this article but will NOT have time to read it, here's the TL;DR version.

Identity verification verifies your identity. It doesn't verify anything else.

For those WITH time, read on.

I've told part of the story on my personal LinkedIn feed and in the aforementioned Bredemarket Identity Firm Services, but here is the conclusion to that story (no, Peter is NOT the CEO at DND Staffing LLC)...and what it means...and what it doesn't mean.

A helpful talent professional

A few days ago I was commenting on a jobseeker's LinkedIn post, and a Chief Talent Officer named Peter Krawec chose to comment on my comment.

For those who HAVEN'T lost a job in the last 4 1/2 years, let me point out two things about this comment.

1. Whenever someone asks YOU to send THEM a connection request, something's fishy. Allow me to quote from Michael Kupietz : "“If somebody asks you to send them a connection request instead of just sending you a connection request, that’s a bot or spammer trying to get around LinkedIn limits.” We'll return to Kupietz later.
2. Note the ending quotation? A sign of a bad copy-and=paste job. Looks like Peter posts a LOT of these types of messages.

So naturally I looked at Peter's LinkedIn profile.

Well, he has more than 1 connection: 54, as a matter of fact. Although it's odd that his LinkedIn headline talks about talent strategy and succession planning, while his "About" section discusses...metrology?

Well, let's look at his job history.

Looks like Peter started working in technology at Sealtron in 1978, working in geometric dimensioning. He then shifted to Luxoft in 2018, still working in geometric dimensioning, but now with the job title "Senior managers Talent acquisition" (sic). Oh, and according to LinkedIn Peter remained at Sealtron. That could be an editing error, I guess.

Then we get to April 2020 (although many of us would prefer to forget April 2020) when Peter, while remaining at Sealtron and Luxoft, took on a new position as Chief Executive Officer AND Chief Talent Officer at DND Staffing LLC . Versatile guy.

Because of the strange things in the profile, I then checked out Peter's profile history.

So the profile was created in October 2017, before Peter joined Luxoft or DND Staffing. He updated his contact information and profile photo over a year ago. (We'll return to the photo update later.) And, his identity was verified less than 1 month ago.

Let me stop there.

About LinkedIn (and CLEAR) identity verification

More and more social media sites allow users to verify their identities, usually by presenting a government-issued identification document such as a driver's license, and comparing the face on the license with a live face captured by the applicant's smartphone during the identity verification process.

LinkedIn works with several identity verification (IDV) providers at different times and in different countries, but in Peter's case LinkedIn worked with CLEAR to verify his identity. CLEAR has verified identities for decades, initially in the post-9/11 days to check passengers boarding planes. CLEAR has since branched out to offer identity verification in other markets and industries, including sports stadiums.

So they know what they're doing.

But let's return to Peter

One more thing about Peter's photo. If you look at his profile, you see a picture of an older man with white hair, white facial hair, and glasses.

But when Michael Kupietz, who was as curious about this as I was, searched Google Images for Peter Krawec, he found a link to his LinkedIn profile. Notice anything different?

Now perhaps the talent acquisition field prematurely ages you.

Or maybe something else is going on.

Actually. something was going on. On one of my posts, DND Staffing LLC offered the following comment:

The mentioned profile in the post is not an employee of or associated with DND Staffing LLC. This profile 'Peter Krawec' has been reported to LinkedIn. Thank you, everyone!

If it looks like a duck...

Let's revisit the timeline

Because I never saw Krawec's LinkedIn profile before last week, there are many things I don't know...including his name.

But here's my best guess at what happened between November 2017 and November 2024.

November 2017: Someone (I can't say what his name is) joins LinkedIn and records his employment at Sealtron.

November 2018: This someone leaves Sealtron for Luxoft, but fails to edit his LinkedIn profile to indicate that he was no longer at Sealtron. The position at Luxoft is consistent with his previous geometric dimensioning employment at Sealtron.

Over a year ago: Several changes are made to the profile.

• The Luxoft position description is partially (but not completely) modified to emphasize talent acquisition.
• The new CEO/CTO position at DND Staffing LLC was added.
• The profile picture was changed.
• It's quite possible that the name of the person was changed. But we do know that as of a year ago, the name of the person was "Peter Krawec."

Less than a month ago: Peter Krawec presents a legitimate government ID that matches his live face, and CLEAR verifies Peter Krawec's identity.

But wait a minute, John...

You may ask yourself, "How did this happen?"

And you may ask yourself, "DND Staffing LLC said Peter wasn't an employee."

And you may ask yourself, "But CLEAR verified his identity!"

And you may ask yourself, "Is CLEAR right, or is CLEAR wrong?"

(Scam. Same as it ever was.)

The most likely scenario is that CLEAR DID verify Peter Krawec's identity. Krawec presented a legitimate government ID that matched his face, and CLEAR C>verified that.

But CLEAR was NOT asked to verify anything else about Krawec...so it didn't.

• CLEAR wasn't asked to verify that Krawec worked in any capacity for DND Staffing LLC, much less as its Chief Executive Officer.
• CLEAR wasn't asked to verify that Krawec worked for Luxoft.
• CLEAR wasn't asked to verify that Krawec worked for Sealtron. For all we know, the guy who did work for Sealtron was really named George Orwell or Mark Twain. As you probably know, no famous author was born with the name "George Orwell" (Eric Arthur Blair) or "Mark Twain" (Samuel Clemens).

So remember that identity verification only proves that you are who you say you are.

It does NOT prove that you've done what you say you've done.

So how do you verify these other things?

With additional effort and additional proofs.

Now if you'll pardon me, I've just received an SMS with someone from a well-known company offering me a wonderful job. And I need to ask that person for their corporate email address. That's the quickest way (although not foolproof) to verify current employment.

(Top image from Google Gemini.)