When you are locked out of AWS you must sign an affidavit and provide photo ID. Seems similar to me.

Amazon has the resources to go through intensive identity verification processes. And so do banks.

Most tech companies (especially startups) don't.

Doesn't this sound like something a startup can come in and alleviate? Anyone have any recommendations for identity verification as a service?

Oh, there's nothing new about that. Startups have identified and entered the space long ago, and the survivors have grown.

So KYC as a service is certainly a thing, and I know of two: Tracesmart & Onfido.

There are at least two such services in Germany WebID[1] and PostID[1] (not to be confused with the older PostIdent that requires identification at a post office).

I haven't used PostID yet but with WebID you basically have a Skype video call where you show them your ID.

[1]: https://www.webid-solutions.de/en/ [2]: https://www.deutschepost.de/de/p/postid.html

I have a few bank accounts with banks that don't have branches. To "verify" your Id they ask you questions from your credit report - which can be problematic. "What was the payment and term on a loan you had 5 years ago?" Fuck if I ever knew what the payment or term was, I didn't care when I took out the loan, I had my own payment schedule (I think if you can't pay back a loan [with the exception of a mortgage] in a year or two you really can't afford the loan...). Some of the stuff I just plain can't remember!

The best was when they asked me which model of car I had owned... and listed two cars that I had owned... I could only select one.

These records can be flat out wrong too. The DMV associates a car with my address that I don't own, for example. I think this happened because the owner never changed their address with the DMV. Or someone could have just fat fingered something which gets populated to other databases with data sharing.