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No longer doable, at least in Europe, you can't buy per-paid phone card without showing you government ID. And I believe you will not be able to create Twitter
by piokoch 3y ago
No longer doable, at least in Europe, you can't buy per-paid phone card without showing you government ID. And I believe you will not be able to create Twitter (that is, X) or Facebook account without being forced to provide something more than email. I've tried, and account was immediately lock until I provide more credentials (gov id or phone number).
All of this is to fight child porn, as always, although, unlike normal people, those who earn on child porn can make that additional effort to find some homeless person, drug addict, etc. and get sim card activated.
So we are where we are with lack of privacy for regular people. Maybe one day governments will realize that not only them have access to all of this information, foreign intelligence too, which make much easier to recruit/blackmail spies and in the end, shattered privacy costs much more than imaginary child porn fight.
- marcjuul 3y agoWhy do you think this is the case across all of Europe? You can definitely buy SIM cards in vending machines in Denmark still.
- weberer 3y agoThere seems to be a trend on HN to assume every country in Europe has the same laws. Confusingly, most of these comments come from people living in European countries.
- Foretump 3y ago[flagged]
- LegitShady 3y agoThanks chatgpt
- mrweasel 3y agoCan you actually use them without activation? Last time I tried getting one I was required to activate it using NemID/MitID before it would actually work. If they do work without activation could you please enlighten me on who's selling these, it not one of the major phone companies, nor is it Lebara. Lycamobile maybe?
- qwytw 3y ago> No longer doable, at least in Europe, you can't buy per-paid phone card without showing you government ID I'm in Europe and I can go to any supermarket and buy a cartload (depending on stock) of pre-paid cards without having to show any ID to anyone. They also work in any EU country.
- em-bee 3y agoin which country?
- qwytw 3y agoI think at least Czechia, Croatia, Denmark, Lithuania & Latvia don't require registration.
- PurpleRamen 3y agoRegistration happens nowadays when activating the cards, not when buying them. But it depends on the country, and sometimes even the provider.
- daveoc64 3y agoThere are many networks in many European countries that do not require any form of activation to use their SIMs.