From the machine room of TDF: Verifications for international hirings

[floeff]

Hello,

find below a copy of an e-mail I sent to the board today, which provides some further insights on work required “in the machine room” of our foundation, in particular regarding international hirings.

as a reminder, by August 12, Deel needs personal data from all BoD members, otherwise, they tell us, they will be forced to pause our payroll and contractor payment services in line with their regulatory obligations. Please see my initial e-mail from June 5 on the topic.

It seems this is due to new regulations, as also other providers and banks have asked us a similar thing, so you might receive more e-mails to that effect from me.

[…]

Unfortunately, the filing must be done via one person, and cannot be done individually by everyone. I can handle the filing, otherwise I am happy to create an account for someone else to handle it.

Deel tells me we need this:

• Full name (as it appears on their official ID)
• Date of birth
• Full personal address
• Tax ID (national tax identification number)
• Citizenship
• Copy of a valid identity document (front and back of driver’s license, government-issued ID, or passport)

Please submit the data within the deadline, the earlier the better (PGP encrypted is fine).

Florian

[fpy]

@floeff

Deel

were they made aware the BoD election date is overdue and still in limbo ?
→ Election Update Please

[floeff]

Can we please keep this thread free from politics?
The verification is needed for the current board.
Failing to provide information in time will result in international employees not paid anymore.

I really can’t imagine that anyone has any interest in drawing Deel, who employ these team members for us, into a political discussion, and make the verification - which is demanding already with an international volunteer board - even more complicated.

[webmink]

Far from being “political”, this is a very useful observation. TDF will have to go through the whole verification again with the new Board when it is elected, so asking Deel and Stripe if they would defer their KYC verification until the new Board is elected seems a wise move.

S.

[PaoloVecchi]

As we don’t have yet a date when a new board will be seated it would make it even more difficult to get an extension of a deadline that it’s unlikely it will be moved anyway. The easiest is to satisfy the provider so that the new board doesn’t start with some time sensitive tasks to perform.

[fpy]

Pourrions-nous, s’il vous plaît, éviter d’aborder des sujets politiques dans ce fil de discussion ?
Cette vérification est nécessaire pour le conseil d’administration actuel.
Si les informations ne sont pas fournies à temps, les collaborateurs internationaux ne seront plus rémunérés.

Je ne peux vraiment pas imaginer que quiconque ait intérêt à entraîner Deel, qui emploie ces membres de l’équipe pour notre compte, dans un débat politique, et à compliquer encore davantage cette vérification, qui est déjà exigeante avec un conseil d’administration composé de bénévoles internationaux.

Traduit avec DeepL.com (version gratuite)

[floeff]

This is done now, but to show the administrative overhead, here’s what we had to do:

• provide personal data (including birth date and address of residence) of all directors
• provide a passport copy of the chairperson
• as it was me who submitted the form, the board had to additionally sign an authorization on TDF letterhead
• I also had to provide my personal data and do an ID card verification

None of this is related to TDF, or to German law, or to a Stiftung - but it’s the requirements payroll providers and banks are putting into place these days.