Protecting Your Identity as a Seller

You can sell worn items and photographs and keep your private life private. It is not luck and it is not paranoia, it is a handful of habits applied consistently. Almost every identity leak in this business is a small careless thing, not a sophisticated attack.

The working name

Pick one and use it everywhere buyer facing. Do not reuse a name or handle you have used anywhere else, because handles are searchable and a shared username links two lives in about ten seconds. New name, new email, used only for this.

What is in your photographs

Backgrounds carry information. Post on a table, a distinctive rug, a view through a window, a school uniform on a radiator, a reflection in a mirror or a kettle. Check the frame before you shoot, not after you post. Tattoos, birthmarks and jewellery are identifying too, so decide in advance whether they appear in your work and be consistent about it. This is the practical side of showing your work without showing everything.

Metadata

Photographs can carry location data from your phone. Turn location off for the camera app you use for listings. Uploading through the marketplace strips most of it, but sending an original file directly to a buyer's messenger may not, which is one more reason to keep contact where it belongs.

Parcels and return addresses

Your return address is a real problem and the answer is not to leave it off, because parcels without one go missing. Use a service that supplies an alternative address, or a PO box, or a business address if you have one. Never use your home address with your real name. If you have to use your home address, use your working name on it. Handwriting on a label is also identifying, so print where you can.

Keep the conversation in one place

Personal messenger accounts leak names, photographs, mutual contacts and phone numbers. Keep buyer conversations on the marketplace. When a buyer asks to move to a personal app, that is the moment to say no, and a buyer who insists is telling you something.

Do one audit today. Open your last ten listing photographs and look at what is in the background of each. Fix what you find, and shoot everything after this against a plain wall.