Did Someone get dropped on their head as a child?

How is it 'Big Brother' for a company to actually have prove of identity of who they are dealing with? So when I buy a phone, the phone company wants to know who to collect the bill from. Very 1984, sure. Maybe in other countries there are other methods to confirm identity. How are those less 'Big Brother', if they give the same information (who you are) for the same reason?

Never been to Europe I assume? In many countries your passport number is the very least information hotels are obliged to keep on file by law. Sure, many hotels (especially low-budget) don't comply with that, but that is just to commit tax fraud by pretending they had less guests than they actually had.

Also there are European Union rules to prevent money laundering. For all transactions above a certain amount, a service provider is required by law to get a copy of the client's passport. It's a big pain in the ass for accountants and such to have to ask, but they have to anyway.

I'm beginning to think in European countries a passport is simply a very different kind of document than in the US. Back here, that is one of the reasons you even have a passport,while to you folks it obviously seems unthinkable.

Totally agreed, especially with the last part. We, the ADULTS that legitimately agreed to the rules should not be punished because of the poor parenting that is running rampant. The best we can do is report minors that tip us off so they can be investigated, there age verified and removed if needed. Forcing legitimate adults to release copies of sensitive private documents that may otherwise be optional where we live an may cost us more real life money to obtain will only lead to legitimate users closing there accounts.

As for griefers, they come in all ages and sizes, and will still find a way to get around these things, hell they will pay to get around them, just to break the rules. I roleplay in Guild Wars and dealing with greifers is something I have had to deal with quite often, some of them are 30 or 40+ and would stop at nothing to ruin our enjoyment, even at the expense of $50+ and all there game play time up to that point. What would $10 and 5 minutes be to these people?

I will gladly hand over my drivers licence and registration to a police officer if I am pulled over. I will physically hand over my passport to a customs official, if traveled which I don't and so have not cared to get one. I would even put my SIN on a government form if they requested it. But I will not hand out this information to a third party company for any reason, especially one outside my own country, and I most certainly will not pay to have that information used to verify my age and identity for a free service.

LL if you want this and you want maximum income from those of us on Free Membership accounts. PAY FOR IT YOURSELF! We will be taking a great risk for your demands, if you can't afford to pay for verification of free accounts then don't do it.

I recfently got a new mobile phone. Except for bank details to set up a regular payment, they have absolutely no proof of who I am. They didn't once ask to see my passport or birth certificate, or even a recent utility bill, driving licence, or proof of my address.

People must be very honest over there, for phone companies not to get seriously burnt by such a risky way to do business.

Maybe they just don't trust you

Same here in Australia, I have NEVER shown my passport to any entity other than customs officers when travelling and the only time I have had to use my drivers licence is in setting up bank accounts.

Maybe people in the USA are a lot less concerned about privacy but here its a big issue. We don't even have a single identifier like a social security number let alone a national ID card.

@ Suzy:
Why do you assume everyone who wants to protect their passports is from the US?
I live in europe, in the UK. I don't even own a passport or driving license. How do you think I ever managed to work, drink, get connected to gas, phone and electric etc? Oh yeah, nobody requires a passport to do business here.

I even worked in a nightclub once, at no point did we ever ask to see somebodies passport.
I also worked in a hotel, no passports ever required there either.

I did assume most of the people shocked by this concept would be either from the US or another non EU country. I must admit I did't recon with the one country not so bloody eager to enforce every EU guideline: the UK (for which I applaude you, by the way). The fact remains, in many countries (including my own, Holland) this is a normal use of a passport or drivers licence. I am surprised at that difference.



Does that mean there is no way to verify someones identity over there? How does a credit card company for instance know who you are? I ask because using a credit card as identity/age verification is so common. The way such verification occurs is usually through a chain of trusted parties providing such verification. In my case the chain begins with the government: they verify my identity and age to the credit card company (via passport, id-card or drivers licence) and the credit card company is a trusted party which verifies my identity and age to a web site, or LL for instance. If the chain of verification doesn't start with the government, then where? How can you ever verify your identity and age if you have no starting point?



No personal membership then? Or did you verify people's identity another way?

in germany it´s common to use your passport to verify who you are, but you show it to someone (bank employes for example). sending it over the inet to a datamining company is something completely different, and thats the point. i really have no problem of verifying my age (i did that by paying ll btw) but i will never send the data to a company which sells the data or uses it to create profiles for what ever reason.
and will not continue to come to a virtual world that is divided into poeple who provide the data (must be perverts) and people who don´t (must be kids).
i have to deal with all that shit in 1st life allready... no need to do it when i want to have fun and the freedom to go anywhere i want. (wait until you hear or say by yourself things like: sorry guys i cant visit your party because you have a poseball set...)

sl is completely for adults. no kids are allowed on the grid, so why devide it?
the whole idea sounds completely stupid to me and i just stopped developing content for sl and will quit the day this goes live

sl for me is ALL about FREEDOM and i am not a pervert or a terrorist and i am over 18

I'm not happy about that part either. I assume (and frankly hope) this is a first step, providing a grace time in PG areas for those not (yet) verified, before enforcing this on the entire Grid.

By the way, why are so many people going on about people wanting to get verified (this way) being perverts, and people not wanting to be verified being kids? Surely we don't need to throw that kind of nonsense in each other's faces to have an intelligent discussion about the question if this new policy is something we want/need or not? I myself don't agree with the naysayers, but that doesn't mean I have to disqualify my discussion partners by accusing them of being minors. I hope those same naysayers in turn don't feel the need to disqualify their discussion partners by calling them perverts.

i agree on this, but i am sure it will happen or allready has happened

"No sir, I don't like it."

The original cc verification seemed to work just fine. I am not comfortable with sending the sort of info they want for verification over the Internet to a 3rd party, who will do only God knows what with it. Frankly, I'm not really interested in seeing mature content in SL. I also find it a bit insulting that those of us who have been here since the beginning are being asked to get "verified".

One final question: Can "unverified" accounts own land in mature sims. Most of my land is PG, but one plot is in the heart of an area of mature sims. Will I be banned from visiting my own land?

Most places that need low level verification will accept a credit or ATM card.

Places that need slightly better verification will often accept 2 recent letters addressed to you from banks, utility companies or other such companies plus credit/ATM card. This is acceptable in pawn shops for example, where they want to ensure they aren't buying stolen goods.

Credit card companies already have the information they need from your credit history. They know who you bank with, DOB, address, and how long you have lived there as well as previous addresses. The electoral register is also available for verifying addresses.

For age verification, there are government schemes aimed at proving you are over 18 which are completely voluntary, and carry no risk in showing the photo ID as the card is not linked to anything else. This is only really needed by anyone who doesn't look 18.

For official use, we have the national insurance number and card, similar to the SSN of the US. These are used in healthcare and tax. The tax office and the NHS also know your address.

All of this is a rather moot point considering what has emerged about the company chosen to provide verification though. In RL, you can watch if someone is writing down details to use for identity theft, and only give your info to people or companies you trust. Aristotle/Integrity not only admit to hoarding data to be sold to political campaigns, they admit that their systems are vulnerable to attack and that data is not secure. A leak of that data gives your personal information to people you definately wouldn't trust.
If a copy of passport/drivers license and your address are enough to do most things, they are enough for a thief to steal your identity.


Something we definately agree on

The driving licence can work for us as well Sys ( if your in the UK?) Though in this case I am not sure how that will help as its a different country to us.

I am so not happy about handing over my passport number, we are taught not to let them out of our sight... and to just freely give the number.... beggers belief!?!

The driving license could work, in replacement for some other form of ID, but I've never had one so I've never used one. Driving licenses are considered more desirable as ID, but not essential

No Teeny. If you remain unverified, you will be barred from neither PG nor Mature. Rather, once the verification scheme is implemented, parcels on Mature sims will have an 'Adult content' checkbox on the Land properties screen. You should tick that checkbox if any adult content or activities happen upon your land, and unverifieds will be barred accordingly.

I totally agree, I thought the fact we had credit cards..e.t.c. attached to our profiles would be ok! I can't imagine handing over all these other details for a game... ok so to me it is NOT a game... but if the worse happens and my info is misued I will have to explain to someone who will think I am nuts and may have me sectioned because I compromised such info to play what they see as a game!

Ah, I see, in the end the government is still the starting point for identity verification, your government simply uses different ways to be that starting point than mine does.

I'm also beginning to see for some people giving out their passport number is a bigger deal than it is for me. My passport is meant for that sort of stuff, the passports of some other countries are not. How easy it is to get confused when something similar with the same name is meant for different kind of use. I wouldn't even be able to get a mobile phone without providing either passport or drivers licence, and showing your passport or drivers licence (it sometimes being copied) is completely normal in several venues, including nightclubs (to verify age, and sometimes identity for membership) and even some public pools (to be able to ban 'griefers', they get on a 'not welcome' list). A passport is not considered sensitive data here, but apparently in other countries it is.

I completely agree with this!

Also just in case people forgot or don't know about the security breach Linden Labs had, here's the blog entry. This was also related to the breach. Just do a search on security in the forums for posts dated back to 9/8/06 for more posts on the subject.

Basically, are you really going to trust a company with the various information they are requesting, that had a security breach into residents' credit card and password information, that happened less than a year ago?