
Instagram Asking For Your Government Issued Photo IDs Now, Too - darrikmazey
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/instagram-asking-for-users-government-issued-photo-ids-now-too.php
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nakedrobot2
The instagram TOS debacle some weeks ago was the straw that broke the camel's
back for me. I recently stopped using Instagram, and requested account
deletion from Facebook.

Graph search and its creepy implications were then nothing I needed to find
personally objectionable anymore.

I no longer have to complain about the other sleazy, move-the-goalposts,
amoral aspects of Facebook Instagram.

This latest one, I have to say, should not be surprising to anybody.

DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT if you don't like it. You will still have friends, I
promise :-)

Before you file for account deletion, you might want to do two things:

1) use <http://www.picknzip.com/> to download the pictures of you from other
people (I have a couple that I liked that I can use for other profile pics,
etc.). (The other photos in my facebook albums that I uploaded myself, I
already have elsewhere.)

2) associate your facebook account with a yahoo email address. You can
download all the contact information of your facebook friends that way (I
don't know if this still works, but it did last year)

This is, AFAIK, the only way to export your facebook friends' data

3) go to your full friends list, scroll down until the infinite scrolling
loads the whole list. copy and paste this in an email to yourself.

These three steps should ensure that you don't "lose" any data about your
friends on facebook, and will allow you to email them later.

~~~
largesse
I have friends who work at Facebook. I still don't know how they rationalize
their employment.

~~~
rachelbythebay
I don't know about them, but I know someone from a different company who has
it all figured out. Every time their company does something nasty, they just
donate to the EFF.

Must be nice to have it wrapped up all tidy like.

~~~
CamperBob2
It seems like a legitimate way to reconcile one's conscience with the
_realpolitik_ of modern IT employment, engaged as we are in building the
surveillance state/police state/nanny state we were all warned about by 20th
century novelists and historians.

I try to do this when I buy an RIAA-published album or watch a Hollywood film.
I make sure I donate an equivalent amount to civil-liberties orgs (EFF, ALA,
and others) during that year.

"Carbon credits," basically.

~~~
guscost
Kinda funny, when I inadvertently buy a TV show or movie that features global
warming propaganda, I donate the same amount of money to Climate Audit or
Bishop Hill.

~~~
lancewiggs
I have to admit it is quite astonishing to see someone denying climate change
is a huge issue on a site dedicated to computer-logic based businesses that
are future-focused, a site populated by many under 30.

Climate change is the primary challenge for the next few generations, and once
we move on from 'debate' we see that there are a wealth of opportunities in
mitigation, reduction of CO2 output and coping with the impact. Just ask Elon
Musk.

~~~
guscost
I emphatically disagree with the "overwhelming judgement of science" when it
comes to this issue. And I'm thoroughly disgusted by the profiteering that
accompanies the global warming campaign. Let's see who is in denial 20 years
from now.

Permalink For Great Justice:
<http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1990/to>

~~~
ZenoArrow
Permalink for Great Justice? Here's a graph from 1970 (rather than 1990),
using a more up to date version of the database you referred to...
<http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/to> Notice the upward
trend?

Let's go back even further, to 1900...
<http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1900/to> The upward trend in
temperature is clear, the question then becomes why it is happening. What is
your theory on this?

~~~
CamperBob2
_What is your theory on this?_

I don't have one, but what is your theory on this?

<http://i.imgur.com/5hPqZQh.png>

Now, here's the whole 12-hour graph, rather than just a three minute excerpt
from the very end:

<http://i.imgur.com/npSuZd9.png>

Whatever your theory was, does it still hold up?

~~~
ZenoArrow
What data is plotted on these graphs? Phase difference of what?

~~~
CamperBob2
In this case, a cesium-beam frequency standard (aka atomic clock.) The
specific data source isn't as important as the noise processes that it
exhibits -- in this case a combination of white and random-walk frequency
noise. The latter noise type alters the phase slope over multiple timeframes
at once, even though the slope is accurately known over the long term.

The usual metaphor is a drunk person looking for his lost car keys. He
meanders around under the streetlight because that's the only place where he
can see where he's going. He won't stray very far from the lamp post, but his
direction at any given time has little or no correlation to either his past or
future behavior.

It's easy to fool yourself into thinking you understand what's going on based
on recent historical behavior, but in reality, the presence of random-walk
noise means that it's impossible to infer anything about long-term trends _or_
short-term biases by looking at short-term trends. In climate science, even a
hundred thousand years' worth of data is still a "short term" record. We need
better data, we need better models, and most important, we need to give
ourselves time to evaluate them on the basis of their predictive power.

Based on my own experience watching random-walk processes in real time,
someone who expects me to take action based on the last 100 years of data from
a multi-billion year timeframe is just going to get laughed at. I've spent so
much time fooling myself (that's my software, and my cesium standard) that I
probably _am_ erring on the side of too much skepticism.

------
mikeyk
Hey all,

Mike Krieger (Instagram co-founder) here. Just wanted to offer some
clarification since there's some speculation about the reason & scope for the
verification mentioned in the article.

When we receive evidence of a violation of our site policies, we respond. This
isn't a recent change, but the way we've run our community from the beginning.
In some specific cases, for verification purposes, we request that people
upload a government issued ID in response. This is the case for a _very_ small
percentage of accounts, and doesn't affect most Instagram users. The ID is
used only for account verification, and not retained permanently.

Hope that helps clarify things a bit.

~~~
capnrefsmmat
> In some specific cases, for verification purposes, we request that people
> upload a government issued ID in response.

Verification of what?

------
rglover
I hate to play the paranoia card, but this reads like a push from the
government for Facebook to start cataloging people. If it wasn't happening
already, this is probably the missing piece in court evidence to show that a
person is who they really are. This is really, really dangerous (especially
when the majority of their users probably aren't bright enough to understand
the implications).

~~~
phillmv
You mean, they needed something other than your birth date, birth place, real
name, current residence, work history, current job, name of your parents,
cousins, grandparents, not to mention the rest of your graph, to correlate you
to a database somewhere?

~~~
ahoyhere
The only thing FB has from me that is real or accurate is my birthday. All the
other things you listed are either totally false or out of date. (Then again,
I don't "friend" my family… IRL or online.)

Until now-ish (or the near future), FB had no way of verifying that, or
forcing me to!

~~~
pasbesoin
How do you connect? If you aren't actively and intelligently taking
precautions, they may well have enough network address history to be fairly
definitive.

Also, do you block their widgets on other sites/pages?

Not that I disagree with the "Big Brother" concerns that this "Ihre Papiere,
bitte." activity raises.

P.S. Aside from government(s), of what value is a proven identity to
commercial interests? Being able to prove that you/they are targeting exactly
who they want.

Hmm... Amongst other things, I understand that process servers are already
attemtping to use FB as a accepted means of delivery. And I've read that debt
collectors are using accounts having profile pictures of bikini clad young
women, in order to successfully "friend" those they wish to hound.

 _All_ sorts of value to "proven" identities...

------
zenocon
I don't think this is new. I abandoned FB about 2 years ago, and maybe a year
ago I re-established my account just to setup a developer key using OAuth2 for
an app I was building. I also got locked out of my FB account at that time,
and it prompted me to scan my driver's license and upload it -- at which point
I promptly said F U and scratched Facebook OAuth support off my list of
features.

~~~
purephase
I had the same experience. I signed-up, then turned up all of the privacy
settings just so I could use it to test oauth, then FB disabled my account. I
guess it's suspect when you turn off all of the account features.

I tried to explain what I was using the account for to their account reps, but
they wouldn't unlock it unless I sent them the ID scans. I can't believe that
there is not a bigger uproar about a non-governmental, for-profit asking for
government issued ID, in electronic format no less, that relies on the
unwitting user to hide pertinent data prior to scanning it.

Fucking ridiculous if you ask me. Instagram should be equally ashamed of
themselves.

------
darrikmazey
What concerns me is that I doubt the average user will understand the
potential ramifications of entrusting a copy of their ID to a third party. If
these documents are not well-protected or the user does not bother to or is
not capable of covering up information that can be used for the purposes of
identity theft, this could be catastrophic for some users.

~~~
MichaelGG
Users will not cover up their documents properly.

With business customers, even if we ask for ID to confirm larger contracts,
they'll send everything. Full IDs, credit card scans, etc. Technical customers
regularly just email root passwords to financially-valuable systems when they
have the slightest problem.

Also, try this: run an ad on Craigslist offering $500 a day for whatever. Ask
for personal info and photos. You'll be deluged with people ready to hand
every detail over without second thought.

------
shiven
Why add any of your data to FB? Why not just use it like an _idiot box_ where
you never create content but only consume it? I rarely, if ever, upload/update
anything on FB, using it only to view updates/uploads from FB friends. No
likes, comments, replies, tags. If I see anything worth replying or writing in
response to what someone posts on FB, I prefer to use side-channels like
email/texting or the phone. Has worked great for the last 5 years. Clearly,
mine may be a single data point/unique case :-)

------
unimpressive
I like to imagine Mark Zuckerburg sits in his five star hotel strumming
"career of evil" while he practices his smile in the mirror.

At some point you have to start attributing actions to malice.

------
artursapek
I wonder just how much friction Facebook users are going to put up with until
we start seeing news of record account deletions. I doubt any Facebook
executive wanted to do this. This is a decision made by lawyers. This is
Facebook getting to big for its own good.

People, get off Facebook. I'm in college and haven't touched it in 11 months.
I'm doing just fine. Nobody needs it.

------
darrikmazey
I wonder how this correlating data can be used in cases of copyright
infringement where the alleged infringer is only identified by IP address.
Could a correlation between IP address and real-world identification be made
by subpoena of FB records?

Reference: [http://torrentfreak.com/court-throws-
out-109-of-110-alleged-...](http://torrentfreak.com/court-throws-
out-109-of-110-alleged-bittorrent-pirates-then-kicks-out-110th-too-130125/)

------
Tekker
A hundred bucks this is tied in with photo-tagging and facial recognition. The
advantage of a government photo is that you're no longer allowed to smile and
are expected to provide a neutral face, all the better for facial recognition.
I wouldn't touch Facebook with a ten-foot pole right now.

~~~
Snoptic
Seriously? Fire up picasa or iphoto or Facebook and then tell me whether
facial expression is any part of facial recognition all. Recognition works
because it uses immovable bone structure.

------
abecedarius
Taking their words at face value, what does someone's identity have to do with
whether they've violated terms of service? How would it fix any issue? (On
Instagram; according to the article Facebook wants your true name as part of
their TOS.)

~~~
nonamegiven
It fixes the issue that you _still_ aren't as valuable to advertisers as
facebook and instagram would like you to be.

Follow the money. Always.

------
mikecane
Ah, I can already smell the class action lawsuit for massive ID theft down the
road.

------
ForFreedom
If social networks are so adamant, I will just create my website have all
relatives and friends contact me via the said website. Or may be by email
before social networks actually caught up.

~~~
technoslut
This is the way it should be done.

I will say that social networks like Facebook have introduced some interesting
dynamics and engagement that could have not existed otherwise such as Caine's
Arcade.

I think we're all waiting for the social network we all want and pay the
$10-$12/year for privacy, transparency and complete ownership over our data.

~~~
speik
Isn't that what App.net is supposed to be? Or are there problems with it I
can't identify (being too poor to deem $5 a month on a social network a valid
expense).

~~~
nwh
For me, $5 is a lot of lentils.

The main issue is that the cost barrier stops people from signing up just to
try it out, in in that sense that app.net really ought to have a 'free' tier.
Even if it was particularly restive, it would let their users get a feel for
it before paying.

------
jusben1369
Did anyone read the purported FB message? "drivers liscense"

I trust FB to spell correctly and use the right apostrophe. Very interesting
set of responses here though.

------
danso
The OP says Facebok asserts that I is requiring his documentation of certain
users with a high number of subscribers...but it seems possible that they'll
turn this on any one who has been flagged for having a non real name, or when
there are similar accounts (I.e. nearly all the same friends, except one is
the person's "fake" account) on the same computer

------
ChuckMcM
If this is an official Facebook thing then the screen cap in the article where
driver's license is spelled "Driver's liscense" doesn't do them a lot of
favors. In particular one of the first hints that something is a phish is that
the grammar or spelling is phonetic but incorrect.

------
nwh
Got to wonder how long it will be until a Facebook account is a form of valid
ID in itself.

~~~
PedroCandeias
This notion has been floating around for a while now and it seems less and
less unlikely. I for one am not willing to accept a company taking charge of
my ID. Actually, the day facebook asks me for my ID will be the day I quit it.
It's total abuse.

~~~
nwh
A database that spans 1/7th of the worlds population. Facial recognition,
relationships and locations. It really is the dream as far as fully validating
an identity goes.

~~~
beagle3
> It really is the dream as far as fully validating an identity goes.

It really is a dream as far as intelligence agencies (FBI, CIA and their less
public counterparts) go. It used to be ridiculously hard to find the info
about how to reach a person, or which buttons to push. Now, almost everyone
offers it freely about themselves, and the few who don't get ratted on by
their friends.

Validating identity might be a by product. But it's not anything that's hard
to do anyway.

------
Happymrdave
On one hand, this is excessive. Really excessive.

On the other, at least it's still a reset option. That might sound silly at
first, but I lost access to an old MS Live account that I had foolishly left
on auto-login on my Xbox for years and eventually lost access to the old
Hotmail account (yeah, I made this account a long time ago) it was tied to. No
amount of offering to show that I was the credit card holder for the hundreds
of dollars in games or anything would convince them it was my account.

For the people to whom their Instagram account is really important, this might
be a nice option (even if it is rather invasive).

------
Oculus
Why on earth would they do something like this? The people at FB aren't
insane, there must be some sort of reasoning for their decision to ask for ID

------
yarou
Soon they'll ask for a blood sample, and perhaps your genome. It's laughable
how privacy is not taken seriously anymore.

~~~
chimeracoder
Well, it's not Facebook who's doing the asking, but Facebook's closer than you
might think to having genetic information: <https://www.facebook.com/23andMe>

------
lignuist
I never had a facebook account and they make it harder and harder for me to
get one.

------
cschmidt
I wonder exactly what violations they're dealing with. My son's junior high is
full of kids using Instagram. They see it as an underage Facebook. That could
be it. Or is there some wave of people using an assumed name.

~~~
Snoptic
Wow, does instagram illegally solicit and publish personal data from preteens?

~~~
cschmidt
Just to be clear, when I said:

> They see it as an underage Facebook.

I meant the underage kids, not Facebook itself. I wouldn't say Instagram
solicits kids, just that there are lot of them on there.

------
walshemj
What next if you don't do this are they going to send round her flick and von
smallhausen.

I am tempted to join instagram just so i can upload a picture of ian lavender
- "Don't tel Him Pike"

------
sadlyNess
FB & G+ are pushing so much to have data on their users actual identities, I
wonder what they want to do with that database. Considering the move polarises
some users.

~~~
Snoptic
You wonder? They tell you every day. They want to show you ads and grow their
network.

------
naner
Now that it is (ostensibly) appropriate for web sites to ask for photo IDs,
that opens up new opportunities for phishing and identity theft.

------
RexRollman
Just when you think FB can't be any creepier.

------
cabalamat
Another site which I will nevcer be a member of.

------
Evbn
HN, I will be disappointed if by this time tomorrow I don't see "Show HN:
government id image generator (no numbers, so it can't be used as an
fraudulent ID)"

For FB's, they have to excuse from making an open source client side pre-
upload number-removing tool.

~~~
jivatmanx
Terrible idea, you'll likely be a felon for distribution of fraudulent federal
Identification.

Same for anyone who uses it.

~~~
harshreality
If you're generating them with blacked-out DL number and address, that's not
really a fake identification card, is it? Not to mention you'd be generating
an image, not an actual ID. Creating real-looking ID cards is much more
difficult than creating real-looking ID card scans.

The most difficult elements would probably be faking the font, and post-
processing it to ensure the text looked real (pixel-perfect accuracy and color
for text would be a dead giveaway of computer generation).

~~~
DanBC
> If you're [...] that's not really a fake identification card

I'm not a lawyer, nor a law enforcement officer, nor a prosecutor, nor a
judge.

While agree that something to allow you to use a website shouldn't be a
serious criminal offence it's easy to imagine that it could be painted as
such: unauthorised access to website services after a clear warning; fake id
instruments; etc etc etc.

------
Nux
LOL! This is surreal.

------
hnriot
People easily forget that Facebook was funded by the CIA and remains their
biggest success in intelligence gathering.

~~~
nwh
[citation needed]

~~~
larrykubin
I think this is a reference to a story on The Onion:

[http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-
dramatic...](http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-
cut-agencys-cos,19753/)

