Topic: What do you actaully consider KYC in terms of information that has to be given (Read 201 times)

The four features that you mentioned don't basically fall under the KYC category. KYC stands for Know Your Customer, and I don't really think that any of these things can make a platform know you at all. KYC is when you are asked to provide personal information and documents that prove that you are the actual owner of the account.

You can always use a number that isn't registered under your name, you can create an email with a fake name and use that for verification. Authentication and fingerprint are only for your security and not a part of KYC process.

Previously me providing my email address and phone number when registering on an exchange won't have been an issue and I didn't consider them KYC since that's something I'll do voluntary just to add some level of security to my account. In the past I can always open an emails for that particular sites and get a phone number easily without any trace back to me but now I won't do such and any sites that mandate me to provide my phone number is a no for me, I'm still comfortable with emails as I can create one without delay as usual. In my country, the government mandated we all register our mobile number with our national identity number (NIN) our NIN is also linked to our bank account through BVN- Bank verification number so in summary, everything is now connected.

Both the NIN and BVN has our home addresses so technically you just providing your phone number, the government and those exchange especially the local ones can easily get other private information relating to you and some micro finance banks also make use of your phone number as your banks accounts. Which means they can verify your name and identity with your phone number. For over 5 years now I haven't verified any centralized service and I try to avoid using them entirely. I only use those that I verified previously when things weren't this strict but the information aren't that accurate.

If you remove KYC from that list of features, you basically want a secure exchange that has multiple layers of protection from account hacking right? I'm pretty sure those features are available regardless of KYC in many exchanges, including the decentralized ones. I'm not sure why the KYC part makes you comfortable if your personal information is stored somewhere and you don't know who accesses it. We've seen many database breaches that result in varying degrees of consequences to the users, such as credit card info leaks.

But the financial system continues to think only about itself. They very quickly created cryptocurrency regulators when they realized what the spread of bitcoin threatens. Currencie of freedom and transparency.
But with regard to requests for our data, the government does not create regulators to control the safety of our data. Recently, a total of 59,000 people were abducted in Russia through a hacked food delivery service. The court announced a fine of $ 850 campaign! It's not even a thousand.
That is why fear for your data is a normal phenomenon.

I have the same thoughts as you Dave about phone numbers and emails, they're not a big thing to me. Someone can just dump his phone number and get a new one unless if the country has these numbers registered and you can't do anything to change that or even if you get a new one, the older one is still registered under your one. For some, that's a big deal already if it's registered to their network.
Asking for my personal address is a big matter, you'll never know who's behind that monitor and sees these info and sends it over someone even if there's a disclosure on their duty that no data shall be sent or leaked to anyone. We just can't be sure with these. However, I think that we're foreseeing that these set of series of KYCs will be going in the future and it's inevitable.

Agreed, the digital footprint that KYC brings is so much that its nolonger finding a needle in a haystack but find a log in haystack...which should tell us how bad our digital age is with disrespecting privacy  and poor data handling.


The AI age is here & this technology has been blowing the competition out of the water and these computers are learning so fast and I wouldn't be surprised  if fake videos/images are used to recreate a person doing something they did not do because so much pf our data is out there...Its about time Data regulation is taken seriously  especially that these exchanges are heavily regulated (esp CEXs).

I used to be calm about the fact that you need to provide a passport or driver's license - this practice has been on serious services for a long time. Now it's not scary to provide a phone - if they have a copy of your passport, they will find you easily.

But when Binance requested a model of the head, it already made me very tense.
Just imagine what AI can do, having a model of your head - this fact is very unpleasant to me and I am against submitting such data to the exchange. Any exchange can be hacked. Hackers can take all the data. I don't want a model of me to call my friends later.

I think its safe to say email address  and phone numbers can be categorized as soft KYC because  of the ease of having them, but anything that request live selfies, tilt your head left and right, upload document's and go the extra mile of asking for bank statements and the alike  will always spook the privacy conscious users because they don't trust how these platforms handle our user data and if hacked this data is never safe in their hands...Its about time crypto spoke one language when it comes to KYC, do it once and never do it again...something like a metamask daddy can surely be built to handle such.

I think KYC should be implemented in every crypto exchange, I feel comfortable and calm using this type of exchange that has strict KYC features, it makes me a little relieved and without worry, Even though there were several exchanges that were hacked and went bankrupt, I think that's a different problem and understanding, but personally KYC has a sense of comfort for me personally.

Example: the type of KYC exchange I am comfortable with.
1. KYC with SMS feature.
2. KYC with Authentication feature.
3. KYC with Email feature.
4. KYC with fingerprint feature.

The four KYC features above make me comfortable using certain exchanges, I am safe for these four things.

My situation is a bit complicated since some government bodies have leaked their data here and there over the past few years. I wouldn't be surprised if my name is listed somewhere even though I never register or use their service. This is why I've stopped registering for new services that require personal information such as name, phone number, ID, and so on. Some of them can be faked or intentionally mistyped of course, but there is also a risk of banning/locking accounts if the platform decides to do so.

Fortunately, a throwaway e-mail address is still an option. I don't think it is a KYC either, as long as I never use it somewhere else that allows somebody else to link it to my personal info. At the end of the day though, I prefer decentralized options as of now since it reduces the risk greatly.

Exchanges that compulsory KYC do so because of majorly two categorised reasons, and these reasons will determine how intensive their KYC will be.

• To ensure the customers are humans and not random bots
• To ensure that they can produced full identity details when government asks for it and to ensure that the system is not cheated with multiple accounts and other scam activities

For the first reason, level 1 KYC can solve the problem. The customer just need to provide any phone number and email to be allowed.
For the second, this is where the company invests time and efforts to get and verify the full information of the customer.
I would have no problems completing the 1st level KYC, but will be skeptical about the other higher levels.

This is not the case with most exchanges with still have lax KYC requirements, thou. They have a provision for one to edit information when carrying out second level KYC verification.

For example, when OKX recently tightened their KYC requirements and if one wants to verify to level 2, there is an option to edit the basic information

There is a difference between submitting fake documents and giving info that could be faked.

i.e. 123-456-7890 is not *my* phone number. But I buy bulk things at auctions and you would be amazed of how many cell phones I wind up with that still are active after sitting in storage for years. If it can get a SMS it's good enough for me for the moment.

Office Suite 810 does not exist where I work. But all the mail in the building comes to a common space, so it would just get thrown in the pile if you need to get something shipped there.

And so on.

-Dave

Email and Phone number verification is to avoid the bots attacking their website for any reason but I am sure they will atleast need your national ID to be verified once you cross certain trading limit and probably it will be around $1000.

So people who trade too often and high amount definitely needs to go through extensive KYC which includes video call verification, source of income on certain cases,etc which may not be comfortable for everyone but to be a reliable trader they need to sacrifice their privacy if they want to trade with cheaper fee, more trading pairs, various deposit and withdrawal function.

You know that you can't be sure of the KYC documents a centralized exchange will ask of you throughout the time you are going to use them, because they asked for a phone number and an email address at the beginning does not mean they cannot confiscate your funds later on and ask for more personal information which you must submit or forfeit the funds to them.

In their terms of service they also warn that you should not submit fake documents, so if after submitting fake documents to use the exchange and later on they ask for more informatiom about you and the details you submit later somehow proves that the initial documents were forged, they would lock the account, seize your money and accuse the user of fraud or money laundering. Kyc is kyc, and it is always a big deal because you can't predict what the exchange will do in the future.

For me numbers 1 and 2 are not a problem at all, I usually assign an email and phone number to sign up for exchanges etc. so it's never a problem.

As for uploading documents and personal documents, this is my problem, because on the one hand, I do not want to upload these documents on the Internet, and on the other hand, I live in a prohibited country, so my documents will not be accepted.

I work most of the time via a VPN, so when they ask me to KYC and upload official documents, including the place of residence, this is a big problem for me.

Don't forget when you register a new account in a centralized site, they will record your real IP address, your device, which internet provider etc that you won't know. They mostly not allow you to mask your IP address e.g. using VPN, VPN isn't a good way for privacy.

As long as you're can't use Tor, I don't think it's private.

It's not only happen in Philippines, but there are around 160 governments are enforcing mandatory SIM card registration. I don't think they will really force it and SIM card that is not registered will not usable anymore, there's should be a way either the SIM card is already registered from the beginning or there's a not really strict provider.

If you check on their terms, you will find if you need to use your real name when you creating new account. So if you're using a fake name or alias, you will have a problem when the exchange ask your ID card. If you're using your real name, the exchange has a chance to find you especially if your name are unique.

Here in Philippines, Sim card registration under the owner ID is now required which means a simple phone number that given away on any services is considered a full KYC because we submit full KYC on our phone number here. All sim card that is not registered will be expired and not usable after the given deadline date.

I think it’s a case to case basis but most of the time email and phone number is not a big deal because anyone can use junk email and random sim without giving away personal information. It can’t be categorized as KNOW Your Customer because you are not giving away information that will lead to your identity.

In my experience there are two types of companies that require identity verification.


1) Does not want to verify identity, but it is required to comply with those rules and does not have a budget to verify all addresses and identities, especially since it operates on a global scale that forms many countries in the world, and this is what happens in most cryptocurrency platforms, as they are forced to comply with the terms of money laundering, and you will not find them verifying that data.

I know people who provided inaccurate data and their account was easily verified.

2) Institutions that check personal data, such as banks, and then they verify the data and may suddenly close your account if they feel any change, and then your personal data must be sent again or every period of time.

I remember that a friend of mine had a problem when he shaved his beard and the bank asked him for a lot of details to reopen his account.

Identity is important, data leakage is a matter.
So I only chose a handful of services to submit my KYC even though there was a lot of concern about that provided I had no other choice. Even just to provide a phone number as a requirement, it opens the way for exposing my information. In my country, the phone number registration process (whether temporary or permanent) requires some ID data.

Luckily I'm a typical internet user who cares about privacy from the start. As much as I can remember, I've only KYC on 2 local exchanges in my 5 year journey in this space.