On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 01:49:46PM +0100, Jim Reid wrote:
Nowhere else is such a drastic measure ever required, except buying ammunition and firearms via mailorder.
Clearly you've never tried buying beer at a US stadium....
They keep copies of passports?
If you don't like the current policy, you are welcome to suggest changes.
The policy does not require personal ID copies kept by the NCC. http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2007-01.html In fact, it doesn't even require NCC to establish the identity of requestors via specific means. That's all NCC operational decision: "This proposal does not discuss any particular details of the contract that may be set up between the End User and the RIPE NCC. The RIPE NCC Executive Board will decide on the details of this contract." I'm not sure we're able to do something about it via the policy process if NCC's lawyers say "ask for and keep a copy of IDs" to "be safe".
However, the NCC does need to have some way of verifying the identity the other party to the agreement.
What level of certainty is required? There are other, less intrusive methods, e.g. snail mail token exchange or a dummy credit card charge (1 EUR). Did you ever have to provide passport copy to online shops where you buy goods?
A government-issued identity document is the easiest way to do that.
Only if NCC would have any way of verifying the authenticity (people trying to game the system are able to use photoshop!), and still there is no need to keep a copy, unless Dutch Law requires to keep such copies for normal contracts businesses engage in - which I doubt. Best regards, Daniel -- CLUE-RIPE -- Jabber: dr@cluenet.de -- dr@IRCnet -- PGP: 0xA85C8AA0