I wonder if these questions were less about identity validation and more about stopping bots from opening accounts? Either way, it's not the ideal solution, but

I wonder if these questions were less about identity validation and more about stopping bots from opening accounts? Either way, it's not the ideal solution, but one is a little better than the other. The chance of a bot guessing all three right is pretty slim, but at least if a real person did research and made educated guesses then it would slow them down considerably.