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Comment by monkin | Hacker News Reader

I earned a ban for life on Facebook. A few years ago, I made an account with just my first name and two letters of last. Less than 24 hours later, I was banned, and they requested my ID. So I sent it to them. I was shocked when they got back to me with information that my last name isn’t the same as on the account, and they can’t verify it.

Now, if I want to register a new account with a new e-mail and phone number, I also need to show my ID and get banned immediately.

In 2012 my PayPal account was deleted after one of my clients reverted payment after getting source material. After contacting PayPal and telling them that I would go to court with that. After just seconds, I was signed out of an account, and it was gone. Nothing was associated with my e-mail address... :-)

In the end, most likely every company does something like that. Maybe not on such a scale, but...

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A friend wanted to register at facebook and his last name is "couple" in our language. Facebook shows an error claiming, that couples are not allowed to share an account - they should open separate accounts. So far so good. However, Facebook continued to refuse opening his account, even when he sent his id card. Now his last name are the two first letters of his last name which seems to be no violation :)

> In 2012 my PayPal account was deleted after one of my clients reverted payment after getting source material. After contacting PayPal and telling them that I would go to court with that. After just seconds, I was signed out of an account, and it was gone.

You should never ever say that!

You either act, or you don't, but you don't "threaten".

If you act (court), and then they act (deletion), it becomes a retaliation, which in itself is illegal - and therefore will not happen so easily.

>If you act (court), and then they act (deletion), it becomes a retaliation, which in itself is illegal - and therefore will not happen so easily.

Retaliation is not illegal.

Iterestingly when I report obviousky fake accounts with obviously fake names related with Erdoğan supporters on Facebook they respond with "there is no violation, so we did nothing".

Get a fake ID with the two letter last name

Good one! :D

I really do wonder what happens when someone uploads a fake ID. Can they catch that (after all, the check is probably automatic in most instances since they don't have the personell), and if they do, would they try to take that person to court?

They can't do anything. I was not getting proper name in fb, so I changed my name in ID a bit using photoshop and they accepted without any issues.

Just block out the ID numbers and all and how will they identity?

Lycamobile Switzerland has an online ID verification where you are required to take a video with you and your ID and they give you instruction to move the ID card so that the holographic elements of the ID get verifiable.

These video ID verifications were just shown last month to be unsafe by the CCC. Public health insurances in Germany aren't allowed to use it anymore. Instructions how to fake your ID on these systems can be found in the net.

Wow. Why would anyone subject to that?

I think we're very near the point where a system can change letters and numbers on a moving ID in a video, if we're not there already. (And if one is patient enough, and the video is short enough, it's not impossible to do it by hand.)

Me!

I got somewhat blindsided and I needed the service, so I complied. The alternative would be to show up in the cell operator shop and show the employee your ID. I find it even somewhat nice that I was able to register online at all.

It's mandated by Swiss law. Cell service operators must identify their customers by ID. You know, south of Switzerland is Italy and sometimes the honorable crowd is trying to put up bases here or already did. It's also a fight against money laundering.

Re your suggestion to tamper with the video: be careful, it's illegal. You don't know whether the hologram or other features encode the identification number. If you get caught it can get expensive.

What companies like Airbnb are doing might also be illegal. For sure it is highly unethical.

I wonder how they would react if everyone would start trolling Airbnb and Facebook by submitting photoshopped IDs :D

Good point about the holograms. But since public companies are verifying them -- and not the gov't -- the information what is on them must be public as well. Heck, I'm even willing to bet someone in this crowd might be working for such a company and might know the answer. And if the info is out there it can be photoshopped (or tampered with via AI, stable diffusion ID generation, my next weekend project maybe haha ;)

Ok, returning to more serious matters (that before waa a joke BTW), the only ethical way of verifying an ID would be an eyes-only approach, where you only show your ID to an employee, no copies being taken (this requires Airbnb to habe offices everywhere, which is not feasible they would claim). Then you'd use your ID to generate a number that can't be tracked back to your ID, akin to how datasets are anonymized. That way all the company knows is that a certain string of numbers identifies a semi-unique person. I have heard the German postal office had implemented such a system once, so it could be done actually.

Another thought: This whole ID requirement reminds me of the prohibition: If you will make unreasonable demands, you will just push people to do it anyways, but illegally.

One can see this on a large spectrum: taking away abortion, not selling alcohol, and lately forcing people to ID themselves for a measly Facebook profile - people will just resort to the black market to get these things anyway. This cat and mouse game is as old as time.

If you block out the ID numbers they won't accept your ID. Was this a long time ago?

These days I guess you'd actually need to actively change the ID numbers.

Whats the worst that they can do ... not let you have a facebook account?

Not sure, they could take you to court for forging ID?

But this is definitely something they can't do at scale, since their whole operation is set up to work at scale by automation.

So with high probability I'd guess not having an account is the worst.

But I may be wrong, maybe someone more knowledgeable can chime in.

They cant take you to court without knowing who you are. What they can do is to refer your IP address to the FBI for "forging IDs", but even then the IP adress needs to be real and FBI must be overstaffed to deal with such matters.

Take them to court over what exactly? Where's the damages? FB would have to show that being misinformed about your name cost them anything whatsoever. They could try getting the DA to prosecute you under computer fraud and abuse (unauthorized access to a computer system under a false identity). Even that is a huge risk. Imagine the precedent set if the jury decides to nullify, and what sane jury wouldn't nullify over the charge of "set up a fb account under a fake name and ID"? And does the DA really want to risk gaining a reputation for being FB lapdog?

The truth is, FB demands an ID but they have no real right or basis for making this demand.

Your analysis about the practical consequences is correct, however your last statement is wrong. They do have the right to ask for an ID if you want to use their service. You have no right to use Facebook.

I'm surprised a human even read your mail. Perhaps there's a filter so that mails get forwarded tona human if the word "lawsuit" appears

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