alt Hacker News> normalising people uploading identification documents and hence lead to people becoming victims of scams
We've long lost this war.
I'm in Italy, staying at my 3rd Airbnb. I was surprised when the first asked me, casually, to drop a photograph of my passport in the chat. I checked with Claude: yep, that's the law.
(I'll remind you that Italy is in the EU.)
On checking into this place last week, the guy just took a photo of our passports on his phone. At this point I'm too weak to argue. And what's the point? That is no longer private data and if I pretend that it is, I'm the fool.
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Well, even there, you're doing a transaction worth hundreds to thousands of dollars probably.
This pretty much lowers the bar to any random website on the internet can ask for ID to do something as trivial as look at a photo.
In a world where social engineering is the last unsolvable security vector, this is significant even if it is just a matter of degree.
I'm pretty sure in most places in the world if you are travelling from abroad you are asked to share your passport, and have been for a very very very very long time.
The difference between sending it over a chat and handing it over to a clerk (who then photocopies it or types in the data into the computer) feels almost academic. Though at least "Typing it into the computer" doesn't leave them with a picture, just most of the data.