[shakezula]

I agree, we need better laws around customer service and data handling, absolutely. For (as far as I could ever tell) no reason, Facebook marked my account as a bot in roughly 2015 and refused to let me access any of my account data until I proof of identity. They wanted a picture of my driver's license and a picture of me to confirm.

I never sent it in, instead emailing and asking if there was any other way to get verified, but never got a reply, and a short while later they deleted my account and all of the pictures and data with it. I'm pretty bummed out because in losing all that, I lost most of my pictures from high school. I have almost no pictures of myself or my friends for roughly a 7 year span of time.

It's my fault 100% for not backing it up, but that's not the point. I was more frustrated with the fact that, for no apparent reason, my entire account was locked and they demanded pretty intense verification to even just get it back. I haven't used Facebook or any of its platforms since, but I have to say it felt pretty gross to be handled like that.

It's pretty sus that these companies use our data for everything but have no actual express responsibility to it.

[slivanes]

Interesting, I wonder if deliberately getting one's account flagged as a bot is the best (and quickest) way to get "deleted" from FB?

[rkalla]

They did this to a lot of accounts back in the day and I suspected then (and now) that it was to encourage (force) people to upload high res pics of their PII information to have on file.

[shakezula]

I had and still have the same suspicion. I had a lot of friends who said they had the same thing happen around the same time and they all just did it. The real tinfoil hat part of me wonders if it was to aid efforts being fed and ramped up by firms like Cambridge Analytica et. al. in anticipation for the 2016 election and their data collection ops as a whole.

[sethammons]

Why is it "intense verification?" What is a good alternative? I lost access to my blizzard account once and I had to send in my driver's license.

[Swizec]

Because Facebook is not a government institution. My legal identity is no concern of theirs.

You can do a lot of stuff at the bank, with your doctor, etc without ever having to show your state ID. What is facebook doing that’s so very serious they’d need it?

(not OP but I use a consistent nom de plume online)

[belorn]

It would raise some flags if my bank representative or doctor ask for a photo copy of my passport. Asking to simply see it, given that they have a specific reason to do so, would not.

Online however there is no such thing to simply see something. Everything is a copy that can be used for any purpose.

A few years ago there was a major leak at a porn streaming site with a large number of people getting their passports leaked. It was reported as a major disaster for those involved.

[sethammons]

I show my ID to pick up my order from Home Depot. I’d suppose Facebook would be trying to prevent someone else from accessing your account, like Home Depot is preventing someone from taking my order.

[shakezula]

Very different to flash an ID to a store employee than to give them a copy of your license tied to a highly-detailed account of online activity on and off of their platform :shrug:

[sethammons]

sure - but, as I originally asked, what is the alternative? I'm not attempting snark; I genuinely want to know what a better approach is.

[ycombigator]

Profiling you to increase revenue.

[II2II]

There comes a point when the demands of the business outweigh the value of the services they provide. For some of us that will include providing identification, particularly in cases where the handling of the identification is opaque. These cases are far removed from letting front line staff glance at a card to compare your face to a photo or verify the details that you voluntarily submitted on a form. The only times I have let anyone actually handle my identification for services directed towards consumers were for financial services and with my employer. The latter case was only because I knew how the identification would be handled in the transaction.

In the case of Blizzard I would say no and accept my losses. (Well, let's say Steam since I have actually dealt with them.) In the case of Facebook or Google, I would say no simply because I don't trust their motivations.

[andylynch]

This seems fair. I need to do the same when picking up a parcel from the shop. Just an easy way of seeing your Alice or Bob and not Chuck.

[spullara]

For better or for worse, that is good customer support with clear remediation procedures.

[jtbayly]

Not answering a simple question about what the options are, followed by irrevocably deleting data the user wants. That’s what you think good customer support looks like? I never want to be your customer.

[dhimes]

I think the bar for remediation procedures needs to be higher than "clear" to qualify as good customer support.