Be careful with your identity documents and KYC

[Kasabus]

Damn, this is sad. I mean imagine you are scamming people online and then you get a case against you from Binance and you never did any transaction nor you have an account which got that money deposited. Binance surely needs to look into this if it's happening a lot. I mean, they need to make the P2P requirements much better and secure for others. And payments should only be allowed from pre-approved payment methods.

This is really unfortunate on the part of victims. They lose their money without knowing that they have deposited in an exchange and Binance is totally not aware of it. So maybe it’s a lesson that one should be cautious when and where to give his KYC that links to his account. Sometimes, scammers are not just outsiders from an exchange, but some scammers are actually doing inside job. Well that’s even more pathetic.

[Odusko]

Far from it mate,  I think highest the identity theft can do is to create some fake accounts on some social media

This is simply incorrect. In the US alone, identity theft affects ~40 million individuals each year and costs those individuals upwards of $50 billion:

https://javelinstrategy.com/2022-Identity-fraud-scams-report
https://javelinstrategy.com/research/2023-identity-fraud-study-butterfly-effect

Once someone has your identity, they can take out loans in your name, open credit cards in your name, use your insurance to rack up enormous bills, commit tax fraud in your name, and more.

most of the documents we provide during KYC are all public documents like ID,  Passport and signature,  this is all public information that anyone can get access to.

What? In what country do you live in that individuals' personal ID cards and passports are public information that anyone can look up?

I think we have misunderstood ourselves a bit and I need to step in to clear something to make my point better understand by you boss,  what I meant by kyc documents being public document is in the sense that,  most of the documents we present for verifications are all documents that we have are requested and used by their party,  e.g your driver license which is use for kyc verification os a public document because the road safety can ask for it from you or even the police,  including the banks,.
So that point of view is where I am looking at it from that is said,  KYC document at public properties since it for their party usage.

[kamvreto]

Once your KYC data has been leaked, it is almost trivial for a scammer to perform a SIM swap attack and take control of your phone number.

Exactly, scammers can go any lent they want to try to get access and steal someone else's funds.
This is why keeping your funds in those exchanges is highly risky because they get your data when you pass the KYC verification, coupled with the fact that in the exchange in which you store your cryptos, you don't have the keys,  so you can easily get screwd.

Giving out your identity or passing the KCY process poses a gigantic kind of risk, it means that you have granted someone access to your privacy, and those details could be used to commit various cyber crimes if sold out. These cases are as a result of an insider job,

It's pretty awful for an insider to do a dirty job like this. Many exchanges in the past have closed and have KYC data of their users and it is possible that this data can be sold so it is very risky. But some large Exchanges like Binance currently do not rule out the possibility of doing the same thing if they have a lot of user KYC data.
Depositing KYC is the choice of each user, or you can use fake KYC.

[o_e_l_e_o]

what I meant by kyc documents being public document is in the sense that,  most of the documents we present for verifications are all documents that we have are requested and used by their party,  e.g your driver license which is use for kyc verification os a public document because the road safety can ask for it from you or even the police,  including the banks,.

Yes, but not random people on the street. There is also a big difference between showing your drivers license to a single officer who pulls you over, and scanning it in to electronic send it with unknown security to an unknown third party for unknown storage and unknown distribution.

As you say, banks request to see these documents for proof of ID and to open accounts, loans, credit cards, etc. Given that, then you can clearly see why letting random strangers have access to these documents poses a massive financial risk.

[Mpamaegbu]

Those victims that are giving their bank details and allows these culprits to gain access on it must really be too gullible at all and greedy at the same time.

Honestly, I can't imagine that someone goes to that point but it's a real thing because I've seen several posts in many socials that this happens. Too sad for those type of victims.

They're unsuspecting as well and whilst the banking details have been taken, there should be like a 2FA system from the bank to call the victim's name if unsuspected transaction has been made.

Sometimes, one's boxed into a corner where one will have to provide certain documentations to enable one benefit from features on the sites one is on. For instance, to be able to enjoy the P2P facility on Cexs, one has to provide one's bank details to be able to transact there. So, you see, it's not that those who tender such are that stupid. There are security features allowed for users to strengthen their accounts (2FAs and all that) and most times these security breaches don't come from users but the exchanges when hacks happen on them and users' data base are compromised.

If whether merely submitting personal info that don't include bank details can lead to banks hacks, I don't think so. For those who always say it will, how does that work? If you want to say because names and addresses and phone numbers are given, don't we also have those information with the national identity card centres in our various countries? How come no one has looked into that as a possible way of bank account hacks too?

[nakamura12]

As far as I understand, the situation is more likely stealing from the person who's data is stolen/leak and then bought by that person and then use it to create a P2P account which is already considered as identity theft to be able to buy crypto using the victim's identity and money. I would say that this is more likely a financial theft and identity theft made by that person or a group of people. Well, it's up for others on how they see this situation but that's how I see it and anyway, the important thing is that you share it for other people to be aware of such scheme. After all, it's better to be safe than sorry.