Be careful submitting your information(KYC) to random ICOS

[minernoob1]

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?

[cryqtovn83]

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

[Tipstar]

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.

[haidangtp]

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?

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

[dumplingsandsushi]

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.

[cryptotycoon33]

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?

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.

[sud]

@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.

[minernoob1]

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 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.

[covfefe_]

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 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.

[criptoman83]

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!

[butka]

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.

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.

[Reza1893]

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?

[minernoob1]

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!

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.

[frowsiter]

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.

[Adunni6758]

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.

[minernoob1]

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. 

[labake]

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

[Old Bindu]

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.

[weeklyeth]

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

[Noobaru]

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.