[rconti]

It seems to depend a lot. It's kind of hard in Germany - they wanted my permanent address. I didn't find France as difficult. Iceland didn't care. Italy wanted my passport. Chile, you virtually needed to be a citizen, as I recall.

[grishka]

> Chile, you virtually needed to be a citizen, as I recall.

I heard something similar about Russia after recent changes actually, it could as well be impossible for non-residents so tourists just stick with international roaming and public wifi. IIRC there's a catch-22 situation where you need a Gosuslugi (online government services portal) account to buy a sim, but you need a Russian phone number to sign up for one. As a citizen, you just need your ID (internal passport).

[throw-the-towel]

But of course, the public Wifi also requires authentication. With, you guessed it, a phone number.

[grishka]

Yes, that's another law they have. Can't access the internet anonymously, basically. And yes, foreign phone numbers do work.

Though I've seen, plenty of times, smaller places have a "public" wifi with a password, and the password is just written on a piece of paper somewhere. That must technically violate that law. But you know, laws in Russia...

[pezezin]

The first and last time I was in Russia was in 2019, passing by Moscow airport, and you already required a phone number to use the public WiFi, but any foreign number was OK.

[codedokode]

Foreigners must provide their biometric data to buy a local SIM card. They better just use a tourist SIM card.

[sva_]

Btw you can still buy an anonymous SIM card with cash in the Netherlands in pretty much any supermarket/kiosk/whatever. And if you just need Internet, I haven't had any eSIM provider try to verify my ID so far. Although those can't easily be paid in cash.

[tartoran]

That will likely change too if it becomes the last bastion of anonymous SIM cards.

[MrDrMcCoy]

Are there services in the EU similar to Privacy.com? They along with US arm of Revolut lets you use disposable digital cards to buy things, but I don't know if such functionality is legal in the EU.

[tancop]

i use revolut in the eu and disposable cards work. its legal because kyc is only between you and your bank (revolut is a bank operating out of latvia), they are not required or allowed to give your personal info to anyone other than payment processors and police.

[kalleboo]

In Japan you need to ID as a resident to get a phone number that can make calls, but anyone can get an anonymous data-only SIM

[lokar]

South Korea is also hard

[throw-the-towel]

FWIW I bought my Chilean SIM without any problems whatsoever.

[TFNA]

Situation circa 2019 at least was that foreign tourists in Chile could purchase a SIM card, but it would be automatically disconnected after some amount of time without registering the phone in a way few foreign tourists would do.

[SepiaSapient]

Not quite, the requirement is that phones not bought locally need to be registered after 30 days, regardless if someone is a tourist or a Chilean citizen. It's a mix of deterring tax evasion, importing stolen phones, and regulatory homologation. The government delegates responsibility to various telecom companies to have portals to self-register the IMEI with ID, which can be a foreign passport.

I'm sure the cops can get that info, but its mostly to enforce the "only one free register per year". Anyone can buy a phone with cash and use a prepaid sim with zero ID needed.

[throw-the-towel]

I got mine in 2024. Maybe the shop clerk activated it for me, I don't remember.