cross-posted from: https://eviltoast.org/post/10253328

I could not place a call over VOIP, so I logged into my voip account on the website where my account is managed. Saw the usual tabs for checking my balance, call history, profile, etc. Plus a new tab “KYC”.

WTF people. KYC has turned my bank into a police station that pisses all over privacy. What’s going on here? Is it that no one resisted KYC in banking, so now they have decided to start deploying it in other areas?

Entering the KYC tab tells me:

“Your account is unverified. We need:

• selfie of you holding your ID card
• copy of your ID card
• utility bill or bank statement

This is so fucked up. Have any other VOIP users noticed this?

It turns out I can still make calls – it was just a temporary glitch. But I guess I should ditch this VOIP provider.

[Technically my post is not “smartphone required” because a digital camera could be used to take the pic and then a desktop PC could be used to do the upload, but I figure this is close enough to the topic to be mentioned here. Taking a selfie with a conventional camera is tricky (you need a tri-pod and the camera needs a timer or remote switch, many trial-and-error attempts to get in the frame). In the end, VOIP users are being excluded if they do not have either a digital camera or a film cam+scanner rig].