Screening
Before You Upload Your ID for an Interview, Ask What Is Stored
You can decline, and at some employers the process stops there, which is worth knowing before you click. Hiring platforms now sell the step as a feature. Greenhouse's Real Talent takes a government ID and a selfie once through CLEAR, says it stores neither image, and calls a failed match a reason to investigate rather than an automatic rejection. Ask whether a scan of your face is created, who holds it, and for how long.
The takeWhen the request arrives with no explanation attached, the silence is the real problem. An invitation could say what the check does, who sees the image and when it is deleted, in two sentences. A company that cannot answer those three questions about its own hiring process in one reply has told you something about how it will handle the rest of your data.
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Assess your shortlistWhy Does the Interview Start With an ID Check?
The check exists because impersonation in remote hiring is documented, not because a recruiter suspects you. In an alert dated 23 January 2025, the FBI said North Korean IT workers have used artificial intelligence and face-swapping during video job interviews to obscure their identities 3. It told employers to verify identity during interviewing, during onboarding, and throughout the employment of any remote worker 3.
On 30 June 2025 the Justice Department announced coordinated actions against those schemes 5. They included searches of 29 known or suspected laptop farms across 16 states, and court documents alleging that the workers had obtained jobs at more than 100 US companies using stolen and fake identities 5. Those are allegations in charging documents rather than adjudicated findings, and the release names no employer. The identity checks the FBI alert prompts are aimed at that class of impostor, rather than at applicants who use AI help.
The share of remote applicants who are impostors appears in neither document 35.
One employer's own postmortem shows why the ID step got separated from the interview. KnowBe4 wrote in July 2024 that its HR team ran four video interviews on separate occasions 4. The person matched the photo on the application, and the background check came back clear, because the identity in use was real and stolen 4. The application photo had been AI-enhanced from stock photography. It is one company's account of one incident, and not evidence of how often this happens.
Passing the interviews and being who you say you are turned out to be different facts.
Employer-side guidance puts the step somewhere else. The guidance in what to do when the interviewee may not be the person who did the take-home is to run identity checks at hire, after the offer, for everyone, rather than in an interview. Aiming one at a single candidate on a hunch is the version that goes wrong.
What Does the Check Ask For, and Who Sees It?
It is a government ID and a picture of your face, and one platform says the people interviewing you never see either. Greenhouse's Real Talent, launched in June 2025, takes an ID and a selfie once through CLEAR, then a selfie alone for later checks 1. Greenhouse says it stores neither image, and that interviewers and hiring managers are told only why a check failed 1.
Greenhouse also says a failed verification does not automatically disqualify a candidate, and instead indicates the need to investigate further 1. It says the matching is built to handle name changes from marriage or immigration. That is a vendor describing its own design rather than an audit of it.
Each employer still decides what a failed check means inside its own process.
CodeSignal describes a different arrangement. Its identity step prompts a candidate to present a valid government-issued photo ID, and matches it to the person on camera 2. The verification status then goes to the hiring team alongside the assessment results 2. The same page describes recording video, audio and screen activity for an entire assessment session, and says nothing about how long any of it is kept. It lists options an employer can switch on, without saying which are on by default.
Greenhouse publishes no false-fail rate, so how often a legitimate candidate is stopped is unknown 1.
What neither page settles is what your own employer does with the outcome. Ask which platform is running the check, and what the result is used for. Both are answerable in one line by whoever sent the invitation.
Ask Whether a Scan of Your Face Gets Created
Whether an image is compared and dropped or turned into a face template is the question with a law attached. The Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, amended in 2024, defines a biometric identifier as a retina or iris scan, fingerprint, voiceprint, or scan of hand or face geometry 6. Its list of exclusions opens with writing samples, written signatures and photographs 6.
A photograph on its own sits outside that definition, and a scan of face geometry sits inside it. Which of the two a given product does is a question of fact about that product. Courts have split on where the line falls for particular technologies, so the statutory text settles less than it looks like it settles. The Act reaches private entities operating in Illinois, and what is quoted here is a definition rather than advice about any vendor.
Ask anyway if you live somewhere else, because the answer tells you what exists afterwards.
Four questions settle it, and all four fit in one message to whoever sent the invitation.
Is the ID image compared and discarded, or stored? Does the check create a scan of your face, or only compare two photographs? Who holds whatever is kept, the employer or the vendor? How long is it kept, and can you ask for deletion?
An ID image outlasts the interview by whatever the retention period turns out to be, which is why the last of those four questions is the one that still matters months later. How long a company keeps your AI interview video, and how to get it deleted covers the deletion requests Illinois and California allow for an interview recording. Where the same invitation also asks to record your screen or your camera, what to settle before an assessment records your screen or your face takes the narrower version of the question.
An answer you can quote later is worth more than a reassurance on a call.
What Happens If You Say No?
Declining is allowed and sometimes expensive: an employer may treat the check as a condition of continuing, and the process ends there. Others may have a second route. The FBI alert quoted above tells employers to complete as much of the hiring and onboarding process as possible in person 3. Asking what the alternative is costs one message.
A refusal lands better when it is specific. "I would rather not upload a government ID to a third-party service. Is there an in-person or live video step that satisfies the same check?" That names the objection and offers a way through, which a flat no does not.
The other reason people hesitate is that the request can look like a phishing attempt. A real check arrives inside a process you started, on the platform whose name is in the invitation, and asks for an identity document and a picture of your face. A request for bank details, a Social Security number or a payment before any offer is a different kind of request. Look up the company's published number and ask a person there before anything gets uploaded.
Declining is not an accusation, and it does not have to sound like one. The ask is about where an image of your face ends up and for how long, which is a fair question for the employer's vendor.
Whatever you decide, keep the invitation, and note the date and the platform name. If the image surfaces somewhere you did not expect, that record is where the question starts.
Common questions
Can I refuse to send my ID before an interview?
Yes. Declining the upload is allowed. The cost is that some employers treat the check as a condition of continuing, and end the process there. Ask what the alternative is before refusing outright. The FBI's own advice to employers includes completing as much of hiring and onboarding in person as possible, so proposing an in-person step is reasonable.
Does a failed ID match mean I am rejected?
Not automatically, on at least one platform. Greenhouse says a failed identity verification does not automatically disqualify a candidate, and instead indicates the need to investigate further. It also says the matching is built to handle name changes from marriage or immigration. That is the vendor's account of its own design rather than an audit, and it holds only where an employer uses Greenhouse with the feature enabled. If a check fails, ask the employer what its own next step is.
Is a selfie check biometric data?
It depends what the product does with the image, and Illinois is precise about it. The Biometric Information Privacy Act counts a scan of face geometry as a biometric identifier, and expressly excludes photographs from the definition. A photograph on its own sits outside it, while a face template sits inside. Whether a specific product creates one is a question of fact about that product, and courts have split on where particular technologies fall.
Who sees the ID photo I upload?
It varies by platform, and two of them publish an answer. Greenhouse says interviewers and hiring managers do not see the ID or the selfie, and are told only why a check failed. CodeSignal says the identity verification status goes to the hiring team alongside the assessment results, which describes a status and does not say who sees the image. Neither statement is an audit, and neither says what the employer does with the outcome afterwards.
How can I tell the request is part of a real hiring process?
A genuine check arrives inside a process you started, on the platform named in the invitation, and asks for an identity document and a picture of your face. Bank details, a Social Security number or a payment before any offer are not part of identity verification. When anything about it is uncertain, look up the company's published number and ask a person there before uploading.
References
- 1. Making hiring safer and more human: An update on Real Talent greenhouse.com Supports what the identity step asks for (a government ID and a selfie once through CLEAR, a selfie alone later), that Greenhouse says it stores neither image, that interviewers and hiring managers are told only why a check failed, that matching handles name changes, that a failed check indicates the need to investigate further rather than an automatic disqualification, and that no false-fail rate is published.
- 2. Cheating Detection & Fraud Prevention codesignal.com Supports the claim that an assessment platform matches a government-issued photo ID to the person on camera and passes verification status to the hiring team, alongside session recording of video, audio and screen, with no retention period stated on the page.
- 3. North Korean IT Workers Conducting Data Extortion (Alert I-012325-PSA) ic3.gov Supports the 23 January 2025 statement that face-swapping has been used in video job interviews, the recommendation that employers verify identity through interviewing and onboarding, and the recommendation to complete as much of hiring and onboarding in person as possible.
- 4. How a North Korean Fake IT Worker Tried to Infiltrate Us blog.knowbe4.com Supports the account of four video interviews that confirmed a match to an AI-enhanced application photo, and a background check that came back clear because the identity in use was real and stolen.
- 5. Justice Department Announces Coordinated, Nationwide Actions to Combat North Korean Remote Information Technology Workers' Illicit Revenue Generation Schemes (Press Release 25-680) justice.gov Supports the 30 June 2025 date, the searches of 29 known or suspected laptop farms across 16 states, and the allegation in court documents that workers obtained jobs at more than 100 US companies using stolen and fake identities.
- 6. Biometric Information Privacy Act, 740 ILCS 14 ilga.gov Supports the statutory definition of a biometric identifier as including a scan of face geometry, and the express exclusion of photographs, which is the distinction the article tells a reader to ask about.
6 sources, numbered by first appearance. How Olive sources claims
General guidance for hiring teams. What works at one company and one volume may not transfer to yours.
Olive assesses how a person works with AI. It does not detect AI-written documents, and it never produces a score, a ranking, or a match percentage for a person. Candidates read the same report the employer reads.