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Comment by ocd | Hacker News Reader

I'm well aware. I've been using VoIP for a long time, but as I said, some services refuse to recognize VoIP numbers as they can query and check. It doesn't matter if the number was ported and originated from a mobile service or landline telephony provider.

Netflix is an example of a company that takes a hardline stance not allowing a VoIP number on an account, even while banks don't seem to care since it's the customer's choice.

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> It doesn't matter if the number was ported and originated from a mobile service or landline telephony provider.

It still depends on public databases with hopefully-accurate data. I'm registered on Netflix on a number which can make and receive VoIP calls. It's just not a usual VoIP-specific provider. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50401117

The comparison with / deferral to banks is not really relevant. Apples and oranges.

I'd be curious to hear your justification for why it's so much more important for Netflix to ensure there's a "real" phone number behind the account compared to banks.

(Note: I don't agree with any equivalency or even correlation between phone numbers and legal persons)

Netflix could have their access to video content cut off if they don't comply with all the ridiculous power trips of content "rights" owners. Banks only have to comply with actual laws.

Banks are required by law to perform KYC. They would otherwise face much greater consequences than Netflix ever would.

Phone numbers are irrelevant for that though, so the only reason banks would think they need it is a false correlation between phone numbers and identities.

Netflix also seems to think phone numbers have something to do with identities. But you'd expect banks to be more serious about verification.

Banks in the developed parts of the world only really need to know the national identifier of their customer to report their assets for tax purposes, and be capable of verifying passports/government id tied to the identifier when they show up physically to claim what's theirs. Asking about anything else is only needed because the Usians bullied everyone into wasting humanities limited resources on it because they're administratively stuck several centuries behind when it comes to governance.

See, I don't believe that IDs are only used for verifying that someone in-person is the owner of an online account, because if that were the case, I wouldn't need an ID for banks that don't have physical locations. Rather it seems ID verification is used to correlate a legal person's accounts with each other, and make it more difficult to perform confidence scams. (Confidence scams typically include things like using a different identity to disconnect your actions, and their consequences, from your own legal identity.)

They are. And the government sets an ID standard, everyone implements it and it's done. There's no ever escalating paranoia.

But the ID is of course tied to a nationally centralized auth/login system for the digital variant of the services, as it has been for decades. The notion of being capable of using someone else's ID in the first place is just absurd in this day and age.

I've never had to authenticate to any sort of federal or state system to create or operate a bank account. I just provide ID and SSN and that's it. I have to do it to access my taxes, but that's because the tax agency itself is already on the federal or state level.

Also, glad to hear that identity theft has stopped existing, it's about time. Hmm, why are identity fraud alerts still a thing? I'm sure they just haven't gotten around to removing it yet.

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