[samename]

>“We require that you sign up with a valid US phone number to verify your identity as a human for security purposes.”

How does collecting personal data improve security? Why is identity verification needed when the point of using the service is to avoid automated identification in the first place?

[bigbubba]

Such a database would be a tasty treat for any unsavory company looking to purchase them.

[geraldkleber]

This is a measure designed to help us prevent facial recognition companies from gaining programmatic access to our api to test against it. In addition, because we are a new startup with limited computer resources such testing could also harm our throughput capabilities for actual users. Unfortunately, there are far better sources of simple name and phone number data such as whitepages.com, or any other CNAM service, so we doubt we would be a target of an attack for this data or that this data would be sell-able even if we were bad actors. Our perspective is that requiring phone verification allows us to provide a better level of service to customers.