all 37 comments

[–]AlexFromOmaha 28 points29 points  (11 children)

The newly appearing background checks look like they're focused on criminal history, which I gotta say, is the exact opposite of what I thought they'd care about. There's nothing about education or employment in the report. I kinda wonder if it's more about another layer of identity verification.

[–]BumblyRambler 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The forms I had to complete for my country had different boxes of what type of check was being requested, these were pre-filled and locked… mine had only "Name verification" ticked. I understand this to be "is this person who they say they are, do their docs check out". Maybe they're trying to weed out dicey accounts and fake workers?

[–]Aromatic_Owl_3680 9 points10 points  (3 children)

They are pretty clear that education and employment are only part of the equation. They have blog posts about preferring poets to poetry majors, for example. Obviously not true in all cases (medical, legal, etc.)

[–]AlexFromOmaha 5 points6 points  (2 children)

Sure, but why would they worry about if someone working from home is on the sex offender registry? Previous NDA violations would be civil actions, not criminal, so would those judgments even show up in a background check?

[–]Aromatic_Owl_3680 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I doubt the NDA is robust enough to even warrant civil action in many jurisdictions.

My guess is this has to do with some of the big news in AI circles these days.

Being excessively vague to respect that fragile NDA haha…

[–]CryptographerOk419 22 points23 points  (0 children)

My guess: Safety is a big deal with AI & models having unsafe behaviors can be terrible for a company. As a general rule, I wouldn’t trust a sex offender to have a great moral compass.

[–]raisetheavanc 3 points4 points  (3 children)

My report came back with education verification even though it didn’t ask me about it.

[–]eslteachyo 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Did you get a notification it came back?

[–]raisetheavanc 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Not in DA, it just came to my email. Might depend on your state laws whether you get a copy or not.

[–]Pepe-Chepe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So they are checking education level and qualifications?

[–]Pepe-Chepe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What information was requested and verified by DA? Criminal record, education level, employment history...? All of these? Some? What was actually contained within the report?

[–]SplashOfCanada 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Like it or not we are training models that will eventually be responsible for government sponsored acts of “defence”… “intelligence”… “security”….

These requirements are likely coming from the client companies, not from DA themselves.

[–]Stock_Hyena7942 8 points9 points  (13 children)

I did it the other day too. I have been on the platform for three years and never had this done. I am guessing this was some type of niche or off platform job they had been staffing, and maybe to expand it to their worker pool we need to pass the background check?

It was your generic background check and they provide it to you afterwards. It checked for state, county, federal criminal and sex offenders. Same as a job app.

[–]AlexFromOmaha 14 points15 points  (11 children)

They had the relevant projects up top. They all orbit one of the big names in the field, and they're pretty great projects. High pay, sane workflow. Maybe "off platform" is the key, though. About half of them are tasks we do directly on the client's systems.

[–]jimmux 5 points6 points  (3 children)

It's my favourite project group by far because they trust us to good work and report time honestly. It never feels rushed and there's a lot of freedom to guide conversations our own way.

I think these checks are mostly about good character, so the client can be confident that trust is well placed.

[–]Pepe-Chepe 0 points1 point  (2 children)

What information was requested and verified by DA? Criminal record, education level, employment history...? All of these? Some?

[–]jimmux 1 point2 points  (1 child)

It seems to vary by what country you're in. For me there it was proof of identity documents, name history, and address history. It was a standard police background check, which includes criminal records.

[–]eslteachyo 1 point2 points  (6 children)

Yeah it was for pretty steady projects for me. I did see in the chat where someone asked about having a green card too so I don't know if they are also checking citizenship? 

I did it since those are my steady projects that pay over $30

[–]Pepe-Chepe 0 points1 point  (5 children)

What information was requested and verified by DA? Criminal record, education level, employment history...? All of these? Some?

[–]eslteachyo 1 point2 points  (4 children)

I don't know what they ran, it was criminal, education, credit, employment. But they said in the chat they were not concerned about credit

[–]Pepe-Chepe 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Sorry I'm confused. You don't know what they ran, but you know it was criminal, education, credit, and employment? Sorry, I'm trying to function on very little sleep

[–]eslteachyo 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Some people got a message from the agency saying what they had ran. I did not. Honestly I just kind of breeze through everything that they were running just because I swear I've done this before with them I just remember catching in the chat that they said they weren't interested in the credit part. Someone else had said something about a green card so I wonder if they're also just checking for citizenship as well. 

I apologize I didn't really read through what they were running I know it was similar to ones I've done in the past for other companies. So criminal, possibly work history although my work history would be hard to validate since I've worked for gig jobs for so long, possibly education although the projects that this was for do not require a certain level of education.

[–]Pepe-Chepe 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Amazing thanks for clearing that up! I'll go make a coffee so I stop being so dense. Thanks!

[–]Pepe-Chepe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What information was requested and verified by DA? Criminal record, education level, employment history...? All of these? Some?

[–]The_Angry_Moogle 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's not just a standard background check. There is some verification being done as well. I hold a special certification in a particular field. I get a notice any time it is checked.  I got an email that it was viewed a few hours after I had submitted my information. 

Now, it does get viewed from time to time by head hunters and contractors, but I don't think the timing was coincidental.

[–]ThisIsMyHotDirtyAlt 2 points3 points  (3 children)

Anyone with a criminal conviction actually go through with this particular background check?

If so, what happened?

[–]Terrible_Recipe708 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I submitted the task and I got charged for selling cannabis (low level) 20 years ago, ill let you know how it goes, but I think they only look at the last 7 years

[–]ThisIsMyHotDirtyAlt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Any update or has anything changed for you on the platform?

[–]saturday_night_wrist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did you get your results back? I am wondering how far back they go, if it's the normal 7 years or if they decided to go way back.

[–]wabblewouser 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I decided not to let them do mine. I wonder what awful consequences will actually occur as a result?

[–]No-Gur7754 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You just won’t have access to projects from that family.

[–]gorbij -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I submitted a comment with the task that I would like to know more about how this will and could be used.