Bitcoin Forum

I take part in many ICOs, and bounties. Recently I have noticed a trend where even tiny unknown coins are requiring purchasers and bounty participants to submit their personal info before they receive or unlock their coins. In some cases they do not even mention this until after buying. This can be very dangerous. I can see in the future, criminals could easily run a fake ICO just for the purpose of collecting the information about bitcoin and crypto users.

What could they do with this information?
Anything can happen: from simple selling user data to various companies...all the way to planning home-invasions on users. Your personal data is not something to just throw around to any shady ICO that asks for it. Especially in the crypto world, we have a lot of users that control huge amounts of wealth,  untraceable wealth, and often they keep it stored inside their homes. Think of what could happen if a criminal organization gets a list of 100s of people that store more than $100,000 cash in their house....what do you think the outcome of that would be?

you're right. It's dangerous to submit all of our personal document to icos. many of them are scammers and they will love these personal info.
We can't know what will they do with out document.
that same as facebook use our data to make money for them

There are already a bunch of millions if ICO related  data for sale in dark market. They are providing passports, SSN and other infos for money. Don't know if any ICO sold it out intentionally or was a data breach, in anyway the investors are at risk.

I feel unhappy about this issue. I also have concerns about personal information and safety for myself. So I opposed KYC.

Yes, this is important and it needs to be said.

Lately, people are seeing KYC as a totally normal thing but don't realize that it is really dangerous and also in most cases, shouldn't even be required.

Because of this, I have mostly moved away from ICO investing since the vast majority of them require KYC nowadays.

Unless the company is in a jurisdiction that would specifically require it, KYC is totally uneccesary.
In fact, it is just a borrowed idea over from the banking sector.
There are very few countries with regulations that would require for something like having the IDs of people who contributed.

This shows that the vast majority of ICOs are too lazy to look into legal matters or compliance or have a terrible legal team.
How is it that I can just do simple quick research and get clarity on these issues and these companies don't have a clue?

Protect yourself, and don't give out your ID and personal information to strangers online.

Yes, supplying those sensitive information about our personal data to fraudulent ICOs could be very dangerous to crypto users. So we have to be very careful to do our due diligent search to know the type of ICOs you could get involved in. Thanks for the information.

@Tipstar

Most likely this data is from one of many scam ICOs or other ponzi scheme hyips. I'm trying to do KYC only for solid and checked projects, but who knows if they store all this data safely. One can only hope that nobody will those passports or IDs for any criminal activities.

I think in some of these cases, the personal user data identities they collect is worth more money than they even collected from the actual ICO.

With 90% of ICO being a complete scam, this is no wonder.
KYC as such should be reconsidered by every ICOs. If they want some info, a video verification can work untill they require further verification. Passports and Personal IDs can lead to disasters.

Pass verification on the project - not such a big problem, believe me. Photoshop hasn't been canceled and no one will check your data through the FBI, KYC is a conditional procedure. I have an old passport with a old surname, so I actively use it and hadn't any problems yet. Take it easy!

That's what I find the most irritating with some bounty campaigns out there. It is completely fine and acceptable to clearly say up front that KYC is required for all participants in their campaigns. People who care about their privacy and anonymity may choose to leave. But to ask for KYC afterward, that's totally unacceptable. For me, my privacy is way too valuable to trade it for any bounty, payment, or reward.

I have some bounty with KYC, Yes I am afraid of those issue about selling the personal data from KYC. But if I not fill the KYC, I can’t receive the token. This no other way, should we must change the system? No more KYC but another way to get verification?

Therefore, you are being careful by submitting false information to keep you safe. My warning was more for the users that do not take any steps of alteration and just send their proper info to possible scammers/criminals.

Indeed. These people can’t be serious about the KYC verification as it is not needed at all. It doesn’t make sense why they even bring up the KYC step as bounty participants are working for the simple rewards and not buying anything with real money.

If they are not buying anything then there is no as such transaction from the either side, it’s just rewarding method.

Thus giving information like that itself is unregulated one and sure they can get huge money for selling our data. Who knows they might have made xyz ICO with just intention of gaining the personal data and selling it.

Truly speaking, giving out one's data is one of he most delicate things to do in the crypto space. Not every developer or team can be entrusted with personal data. Although, i have seen projects that could be trusted when it comes to KYC. Before giving out you personal data, it will be good one carry out appropriate research most especially on the team of such project in order not to fall victim of circumstances through some forms of criminal acts.

I even worry about fully verifying on poloniex and bittrex(i still have coin stuck on both).... much less any ICO run by people that I have no info on. 

I concur with you. You listed all the dangerous part of this and no single positive reasoning one would dispute any of those fact listed. Someone needs to be very careful while giving out personal information especially when it comes to all documents we are submitting

It seems to me that all this is very wrong. You have brought very reasonable arguments. Nobody can guarantee that your documents will not fall into the hands of criminals. Then it can end very badly.

Submitting KYC for different icos may be risky at the same time we should take calculated risk for ico coins for the reason some coins are genuine

I definitely agree. So, before you indulge yourself into giving away your personal information, you should always check that ICO is legit. Still, you can never be 100% sure. You should however never give your ID to some shady ICOs with not a lot of community behind it. That can end up badly.

I completely agree with you guys. There has to be some other way to prove identity without sending your documents, because KYC doesn't work as it should now and it's too risky. I hope we will see new rules in the future for ICO that will protect potential investors from the risk of being deceived.

  You need to be very careful when submitting a KYC for the ICO. You have to think a few times before sending your personal information to strangers. I send personal information only if I see that there are reliable people in the project team who can be trusted.

If an ICO requires KYC then I simply pass on it.

Exception may be a real big ICO (like from real companies)... even then, I'm not so keen on it. But
for standard coins, forget it, not worth the risk.

It's dumb enough to send ID documents to an exchange, it's something else entirely to send it to some random people doing an ICO. Unless they have some substantial credentials/provenance outside of the ICO, it seems pretty stupid.

If it can produce great and believable then need KYC does not matter because certainly, the goal is also good. However, when it is already abused our personal data and we are also threatened with big trouble. It could be that it will be used for crimes or otherwise. so selective in choosing which of course if ICO gives the terms of KYC should also be correct to be trusted.

Totally agree with you. This day and age we must be cautions about everything we share online. I participate in bounties, ico and airdrops but only the ones that require basic info such as email, social media handles. Everything else I stay away unless it is a project that I have been researching strongly about.

Yeah, every ico and online biz is asking for kyc now, it is becoming more and more usual and mainstream, although kyc and this procedure is very annying i accepted this new trend as i understood that this kyc is important and implemented due to regulatory and official compliance but i have also read not it is not required by many countries, i hope situation will become clear in coming months.

KYC submission to a company for an ICO or bounty is dangerous and it must be looked upon well before entrusting your sensitive data to unknown entities that might sell your identity in black market

Instead of so trustingly sending potential confidential information to potential fraudsters, ask them on what legal basis they require you to do this data and what exactly is written in these documents, if they can specify such a document at all. I'm absolutely sure that members of the ICO generosity campaign are not subject to KYC verification. Only investors are subject to such verification, we are not investors.

never join any airdrop that request KYC, they only wanna steal your personal data then can sell it or do some attack behind you

Instead of so trustingly sending potential confidential information to potential fraudsters, ask them on what legal basis they require you to do this data and what exactly is written in these documents, if they can specify such a document at all. I'm absolutely sure that members of the ICO generosity campaign are not subject to KYC verification. Only investors are subject to such verification, we are not investors.
good luck!!!!
 :) :D ;) :) :)

As some of here said, never ever trust ICO's getting personal informations from you. This KYC (Know Your Customer) is only their alibi to at least scam their participants. We should be warned whenever we see an ICO with a KYC thing. Most probably, newcomers or newbies are not aware of this that is why they are always the subject of victims of frauds.

This indeed should look out for. many of the ICO starts contains a scam and is certainly very dangerous if already entering our KYC therein. analysis of course also very necessary before join or invest in ICO. It's hard but at least anticipate known also as necessary.

I cherish in any of these casings, the live owner material agreements they concentrate is bill exceeding yard-dog than they fifty-fifty self-possessed from the present ICO.

I don't want to take a big risk on myself. If not for the ICO which is really great and promising then I will not want to access my identity through KYC for ICO. better I find ICO as surely many ICO also without KYC, however, can also be successful in their sales.

I have participated in so many KYC's done by dodgy ICO's that I am sure my personal information is widely available on the dark web. My personal circumstances will however make it very difficult to exploit any of that information to your advantage, so I am past the point of worrying.

I participated in several ICOs who asked to go through KYC and asked to send their personal documents, after which it turned out that this project was a fraud and now it is not known who will use my data in the future. In addition, hundreds of different databases are sold on the Internet with a list of those who are associated with cryptocurrencies. This is an unpleasant trend, which is increasing every day.

It's a serious problem, and it's worrying.
Because most ICO projects do not guarantee the security of our KYC data very well.

You don't have to worry since wealthy crypto holders or whales aren't participating in any bounty that only wastes their time. Only those spammers and farmers are really dedicated to participate in bounty campaigns. Doing KYC on every bounty campaign is a good thing on part of the company because there are lots of people right now having gazillion alts to cheat their way in to the bounty which gives negative impact to the project that they are promoting.

It's true, no one is immune from fraud and the use of our personal data for illegal purposes. Now even airdrops ask to pass KYC, but I believe that this is already too much to prove the identity for the sake of several dollars. I ignore such airdrops and if I have doubts about ICO and the honesty of his team, then I do not take part in it.

I think all investors already know it because they don't want their documents are sold on dark market because of doing KYC for a scam ICO project :).
At the moment, as I can see ICO investors often invest in ICO projects which don't require KYC but they still invest in projects require KYC if it's a really good and truthworthy project :)

do you know most of the ICO also require investor submit their KYC, allow them to check the source of funds raised during the token sale and verifying each buyer’s identity and residency, but we only can choose one - KYC or Money, you can't participant their token sale if don't pass KYC, actually ICO required KYC is ok for me because I'll check everything and just invest in promising project

Yes. I do agree with you. The outcome of it is unimaginable and most of all, terrible. That's why, as much as possible, do not join in campaigns that require KYC or Know-Your-Customer procedure. I know that, not all of them means harm. But, being cautious won't bring us harm, right? And for those who want to create a coin, please. Just please. Don't use KYC if possible. And I know that it is, since there are lots of successful coins without needing the KYC process.

The problem is that KYC is going to become mandatory and it's not only a pain to have to repeat but also shares personal information.

That's the reason Blockpass is working on a truly self-sovereign identity verification app. The first version is already out and in future versions we will be enabling zero knowledge proofs to allow companies to verify your data without actually having access to it. Then this issue of submitting info to random people will be solved.

Check us out www.blockpass.org (http://www.blockpass.org)

yes im agree with you, personal database was have a value now and they can sell it, lets say the same case with Facebook, on asian region Facebook was being hijacked and many user database was stolen, so be carefull guys with regist form that you want to filled when regist on any ico.