KYC. No, Thanks

&gt; Realistically, KYC might deter a small fraction – let&#x27;s say about 1% – of these malefactors.<p>You may as well say, &quot;KYC might deter a large fraction - let&#x27;s say about 99% of these malefactors&quot;<p>There&#x27;s no evidence provided for these numbers. It&#x27;s one thing to make an assumption which is counter to your argument - &quot;Even if 99% of criminals are deterred, it creates an unconscionable burden upon those whose identities are stolen&quot; or etc.<p>It&#x27;s quite another just to assume your own argument. Let&#x27;s assume cops prevent 99% of crime - it&#x27;s worth their brutality or whatever. Let&#x27;s assume cops prevent 1% of crime - we would be better off with 1% more crime and no cops or whatever.<p>It&#x27;s absolutely pointless.<p>The article goes on to immediately compare KYC with widespread facial recognition. Why are these equivalent?<p>They could at least try to engage with arguments for KYC - that large financial institutions should not be making life easier for criminals. Historically, a bank obviously knew their customers - they had to open the accounts in person, talk with the bank manager, etc.

&gt; To sum up, KYC does not protect individuals<p>This is true, but it&#x27;s also not the point. KYC isn&#x27;t about protecting individuals - it&#x27;s about protecting the system (financial and geopolitical) as a whole.<p>Can it be defeated? Of course it can. But it&#x27;s not the sole line of defense against these sorts of things - it&#x27;s part of a broader system comprised of internal bank security procedures, government monitoring and after-the-fact investigation of financial crimes.<p>I don&#x27;t mean to say that everything written here is wrong, but this is a complex topic that has meaningful tradeoffs of security vs. being free of surveillance and convenience. This sort of blind CRPYTO GUD GUBMINT BAD writing that doesn&#x27;t even pretend to attempt to understand its topic at any meaningful level of depth doesn&#x27;t exactly contribute to the discourse.

The purpose of KYC laws is to replace difficult to prove and prosecute crimes like human trafficking, terrorism and drug dealing, with easy to prove and prosecute crimes like &quot;lying on banking forms&quot; and &quot;money laundering&quot; and &quot;tax evasion.&quot;<p>Everyone knows that criminals lie on these forms and _that is the point_. They now have an easy to prosecute charge just waiting for them if they ever attract the attention of the authorities. They just need to look into where their money is coming from and there will be a lot of ways they can prosecute them.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bitsaboutmoney.com&#x2F;archive&#x2F;optimal-amount-of-fraud&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bitsaboutmoney.com&#x2F;archive&#x2F;optimal-amount-of-fra...</a>

&gt; KYC is being used by many businesses as a convenient gatekeeping tool. A perfect excuse based on a &quot;legal&quot; procedure they are obliged to.<p>This. Right here. KYC is prone to abuse for censorship, and does anyone believe that it isn&#x27;t already? Does anyone believe that KYC scores aren&#x27;t going to eventually be linked to credit scores, ESG scores, perhaps social credit scores someday?

This is definitely an interesting position, but it&#x27;s an argument that needs to be backed up with solid evidence about the costs and ineffectiveness of KYC. This post contains zero such evidence, and as such, is entirely worthless.

It forces bad actor to go for more complicated schemed to avoid regulations.<p>Author&#x27;s point is like saying having cops near a bank is useless because robbers will just avoid those banks.

How do you handle customer password resets when an email service provider locks them out?<p>Do you just keep the money? Or do you send it to the government who keeps it, because they can’t assign it to a person?<p>KYC is a speed-bump for criminals, yes. But it’s also the only way to support the finance system for regular people.<p>What happens when you have a financial system where there is no people or traceability tied to funds? You know the answer, it’s a loaded question.

The purpose of KYC isn&#x27;t just to combat terrorism and financial crime, but also to protect businesses from the actions of unscrupulous individuals, which is common in low-trust societies. As Western society transitions from high-trust to low-trust, I predict KYC will only become more widespread.

I don’t understand the issue here. It seems like various KYC regulations are the status quo. Is there a specific bill or proposal the article is against? That was left totally unclear.<p>I don’t think tin foil hat shout into the clouds articles are very useful. Is the author an expert on money laundering or organized crime? Give me some reasons that aren’t just soap box speeches about freedom.<p>Finally, I think that it’s pretty obvious how basic identity regulations can work. If a bar has an ID scanner that accesses a state database to look up your picture on file that can trivially defeat a fake ID. If a car dealership does the same they can prevent selling a car to someone who isn’t licensed to drive. Seems pretty normal to me.

A lot of the usual misconceptions about KYC in here (that you need ID, or how the government insists KYC is implemented).<p>I find Patrick McKenzie’s (patio11) deep dive into KYC [1] useful to understand more of why KYC exists and what is and isn’t in the law.<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bitsaboutmoney.com&#x2F;archive&#x2F;kyc-and-aml-beyond-the-acronyms&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bitsaboutmoney.com&#x2F;archive&#x2F;kyc-and-aml-beyond-th...</a>

KYC effectively means that if you don&#x27;t own property and don&#x27;t pay rent, then you&#x27;re not a full legal person. You need an address, and a cheap P.O. box won&#x27;t cut it. Need to live in your car? Want to live in your RV or boat? Planning on selling everything and backpacking around? Good luck registering for a driver&#x27;s license or a checking account.

the KYC regime operates under the idea that its working because fraudulent identities work.<p>nobody here would ever know if a bank account currently exists in their name at a different institution, if it was properly used to simply accept payments for legal services and not leave an account in overdraft.<p>the entire concept of whitelisting transactions is a fools errand

&gt; Realistically, KYC might deter a small fraction – let&#x27;s say about 1% – of these malefactors.<p>I too can pull arbitrary statistics straight out of my backside, and use them to argue my point<p>Why not 10%? Why not 10000% in fact (if we’re comparing it to the number of current bad actors)?<p>Do you really think there wouldn’t be more tax cheaters if nobody did KYC checks? Come on…

There are some things that should require KYC. Like accepting DMCA claims. The claimaint should have to be a real verified person before the host should be required to act on a DMCA complaint.

kyc is a lot more than just &quot;muh privacy,&quot; it is effectively the lynchpin of how the United States weaponizes its monetary standard against other nations and individuals. KYC allows the state to maintain the illusion of a free and fair trial by jury whilst at the same time freezing all monetary assets you could use to ever defend yourself under the guise of &#x27;crime&#x27;, effectively guaranteeing themselves a win.<p>and to clarify the article, not <i>all</i> cryptocurrencies are set in stone traceable. Monero enjoys ephemeral transactions that are so untraceable, no ones claimed the US government bounty for a proof-of-concept yet. In turn, youll likely see most KYC exchanges get strong-armed into dropping support for mondero-like currencies altogether.<p>your entire monetary life is effectively for review. visa&#x2F;amex&#x2F;mc all tag your transactions with a vendor code as part of KYC to build a profile of your spending and sell analytics to economists about what you buy (food, guns, clothing, cars, etc..) move too much money in cash? KYC kicks in and youll need to explain to the teller <i>why</i> you want that money. Dont want to explain? they will inform the FBI under the bank secrecy act. want to know if they reported you? you cant (its literally illegal.)

The problem is policies like KYC are often just corporate CYA (cover your ass) policies. Making the security measures as overt as possible gives corporations plausible deniability.

Laws can be circumvented --- therefore, laws are useless???<p>This line of reasoning is highly suspect --- particularly when based on assumptions without concrete supporting evidence.

Anonymous terrorist and organised crime funding scam technology? No thanks ;)

Because anonymous banking facilities have never been used to launder vast amounts of cash...