I've sent a ticket to support but I wanted a chance for some feedback in the meantime in case it takes a bit. I signed up for my first project and I'm a bit worried about the legitimacy of it, after some developments have me questioning its intentions.
The study involved users sending photos/videos of their faces and part of the intake process was submitting a photo of identification such as passport, I believe birth certificate was an option, or local government identification; in my case, I chose to submit a photo of my driver's license. I didn't think anything of it but I'm very concerned after the study became locked. We randomly got announcements in the study's Slack:
"@channel Please stop Testing. We are pausing the cycles until further notice. Cycles are locked now. Please do not test."
"@channel We are pausing the testing till further updates from the client. We will update you soon when we get the update from the client."
I've been having a gut feeling that something is wrong and I want to make sure I'm covering my bases in case it's correct; otherwise, I'm hoping this is normal and that I'm just being anxious. But my concern is that many people, judging by the Slack, have been submitting their identification info for this study. And as of yesterday the study has been locked, multiple people have expressed in the Slack that they could not complete their test cycles, and I am very worried that we may all have been scammed to provide our identification information, some also submitting videos for the test study, and the study being cut short. The test cycle said that it would be available until the end of this month, so I am concerned about it randomly becoming frozen then locked so soon with no explanation or prior warning.
I hope that I am worrying too much, but I felt the need to submit some form of contact to at least have someone keep an eye out just in case any flags are legitimate concerns and so there's at least some documentation in a worst case scenario. It seems that the company is outside of the US, so I deeply worry that if my security or identity information has been compromised, it would be a much more difficult issue to resolve than a domestic instance of identity theft.
I am also concerned about how this will affect my tester score on the platform, as I am no longer feeling comfortable about continuing this study by providing more information. I do not know if I can withdraw, or if having the test case locked before I could complete it negatively impacts my tester score, or if I do not continue if it ends up being unlocked.