They require photo ID now

I've been with RackNerd for three years. Anonymous signup, crypto payment, no questions. My reverse proxy stack, my DNS, my backup MX — all there. Renewal email hit today: "To comply with regulations, please upload government-issued photo ID."

Why pay for privacy when you can self-host it? I know, I know, colocation needs a provider. But this stings. I run docker compose for everything at home. This was my offshore redundancy.

I grudgingly verified. Took a blurry phone pic of my passport, cropped it in GIMP, sent it. Felt dirty. Moving the sensitive workload to a friend's rack in Berlin this month. Reverse proxy already configured.

Is this everywhere now? Or are there holdouts? https://www.racknerd.com

This is very bad. Is GDPR not protecting us? I thought the data minimization means they cannot ask for more than necessary. Maybe I am very naive.

Actually I wrote a long rant about KYC creep and financial surveillance, but deleted it. Too angry. Short version: I moved my torrent seedbox to p2p-friendly hosting years ago, now they want my face too. Is very frustrating.

The workaround: separate identities per service. Not illegal, just prudent. But what a pain to maintain.

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- re: @pablowild
- NOTE: GDPR Article 5(1)(c) — data minimization
- WARNING: "necessary" is interpreted broadly by providers
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- KYC trends observed:
- 2022: name + email sufficient
- 2024: photo ID standard for "fraud prevention"
- 2026: biometric selfie emerging
- Vultr piloted this, rolled back after complaints
---
- practical responses:
- migrate sensitive workloads:
- self-hosted: full control
- friend-hosted: trust-based, no KYC
- NOTE: both need backup planning
- segment identity per function:
- financial: verified, real name
- technical: pseudonymous where possible
- WARNING: correlation attacks exist
---
- OP's docker compose + reverse proxy approach:
- sound architecture
- replicate at secondary site before migration