Ask HN: Would you send a photo holding your drivers license to rent a VPS?

I wanted to try out OVHcloud and signed up and paid for a small, cheap VPS. Then I get this email:

  Please provide full-color photos of the following using the OVHcloudShare app (see instructions below):
    - A government-issued photo ID
    - A picture of the credit card used in the transaction including:
          1. The name matching the listed name in the Manager account, AND
          2. The last 4 digits of the card number
    - A photo of yourself holding the government-issued Photo ID provided above.

I absolutely will not do this - it's incredibly invasive and this is just a hosting service, not a bank. And it's a terrible idea. If every company starts doing this the security implications are far worse than whatever problem they're trying to solve.

Am I crazy? Is this just the way the world works now because of KYC or credit card scams or something? Or is it a European thing? (This is a French company and I'm in the USA.)

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40304191

Points: 26

# Comments: 16

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40304191