You have to use the camera on a device, you can’t upload an image file (which just makes things more obnoxious, not any more secure) They tell you they’ll keep the photo stored for a year to better improve their process or whatever other bullshit. You can opt to have them only store it for one month (how nice of them) but when you do that I totally resets the flow of everything so you have to do everything all over again and it makes it seem like you’re stuck in an endless loop of doing that so you’ll just let them keep it for a year.

I caved and did it. There was no time to verify. I was just able to login.

So no, they didn’t need it for any actual verification or security reason. They just wanted the data. It’s almost funny how naked it was.