Authors Beware of Created By Humans' Identity Verification Process
#authors #writers #fiction #nonfiction #createdbyhumans #plaid #plaidlawsuit
Since mid-December I’ve been pitching the text to AI video generative rights to a satirical novel I’m handwriting (as opposed to using AI) called “The First Human Hire” to AI companies and AI studios.
The First Human Hire tells what happens when an artificial intelligence company fully staffed by artificial intelligence entities decides to hire its first human employee.
Last week, The Authors Guild sent an invitation to a Zoom presentation on behalf of their partner, a new AI rights licensing company called Created By Humans. CBH describes themselves as a bridge between rights holders and AI companies. This caught my interest since I was already pitching every AI company on Earth.
I attempted to sign up for CBH. The first step involves verifying the author's identity to make sure imposters can’t claim their works which makes sense. A half page window pops up that’s actually hosted by the verification vendor a company called Plaid. Plaid presented my just entered email address on a page with my social security number and a previous street address. This alarmed me. Someone stole my identity in 1998, so I never give out my ss # on the internet ever.
CBH and the Author’s Guild tried to gaslight me by telling me I must have given my ss# out at some point to Plaid or one of their partners. Someone stole my identity in 1998, so I never give out my ss # on the internet ever. I barely give it out in person.
Googling Plaid will reveal they settled a class action lawsuit for very bad behaviors involving consumers identity data.
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CBH says “Plaid is trusted by many financial and government institutions. It has the highest coverage of any data verification provider. The goal of using Plaid is to ensure no one can impersonate you.?
The goal of a verification process is to ensure no one can impersonate you. I’m not questioning the need for the verification process. I’m questioning why CBH chose to work with a verification company who settled the class action lawsuit mentioned above.
When a web site redirects a user to another web site they should clearly present a message along the lines of “CBH is temporarily handing you off to Plaid, our identity verification partner.” There’s nothing like this. Only if the user pays attention to the browser window will they notice they’re no longer on the CBH site.
The third party site should present links to their own privacy policy, data policy and terms of use. The Plaid hosted page presents a link the CBH’s Privacy Policy. See the image at the top of the page. You'll find at the bottom of this page a "Powered By Plaid" button. The user has to click to Plaid's site to find their all their privacy and data collection policies.
Any author who values the privacy of their personal data should until CBH replaces Plaid with a different verification vendor who has settled a class action lawsuit before signing up for their service. I recommend Created By Humans and The Authors Guild announce an immediate freeze on author signups by admitting the verification process lacks the guardrails in place to protect authors' private data.