At first I was glad to see the first few bitcoin ATMs coming on line.
Then I found out that they require a palm print, facial photo, and government ID scan. My jaw dropped.
1. The legacy financial system's ATMs are under none of these onerous requirements. Any Bank of America, Wells Fargo, or Citibank ATM will happily spit out $500 at a time to holders of
anonymous prepaid cards issued from any country on the planet (except possibly Iran and North Korea). No photos, no ID, nothing. This is an unbelievably blatant double standard.
2. The user has no idea who this information is being given to or what will be done with it. Most importantly,
there is no guarantee that use of a bitcoin ATM will not be grounds for an IRS audit. Mark my words, two or three years from now any US person who's ever gone through AML/KYC with any bitcoin-related business, including use of one of these ATMs, will get audited. The IRS has complete impunity to audit whoever they like, whenever they like, for any reason (including political orientation) or no reason at all. If they can use audits to repress a wing of the Republican party, I'm sure they can use them to repress cryptocurrencies. They've already used it to
harrass open source projects.
I really think this is the legacy system's strategy for strangling bitcoin. They've apparently been able to convince regulators to impose AML/KYC requirements on bitcoin-related business
above and beyond those imposed on all other money-related businesses. With that little barrier out of they way they can now simply keep bumping up the regulatory requirements to whatever level is required to make bitcoin more inconvenient/risky than what they're offering.
The people operating these ATMs need to stand up to FINCEN and point this out. The potential users of these ATMs need to shun those based on an AML/KYC double standard. Don't accept a level of regulation that exceeds what's imposed on the legacy financial system. That's the only line in the sand.
Edit: boldified "anonymous prepaid cards" since people seem to be missing that part.