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This isn't terribly uncommon. You should ask if you can redact certain information from the ID. They probably don't do this often and when they do it's because

This isn't terribly uncommon. You should ask if you can redact certain information from the ID. They probably don't do this often and when they do it's because there is some significant signal that means that the cost of asking you for this generally excessive information, outweighs possibly losing you as a customer because of some inherent risk they see on their side. If you trust them with your credit card number, then I don't see why you shouldn't trust them with your identification as long as you are sure this is not a phishing scam of some sort. All the same, I'd still see if they would let you redact anything you are uncomfortable sharing (like the license # or address) Chances are that they just want to make sure you are definitely who you say you are, which a solid, scanned ID will help to confirm. As a slightly unrelated aside: bartenders ask for your ID, so do some vendors when using a debit/credit card, so this is not completely crazy, obviously they don't explicitly store it in digital form, which is probably where your concern comes from.

kohanz 13y ago
Thanks for your helpful comment. I asked if I could redact anything and received the response: A scan of the entire ID would suffice. It's for verification, we do not store it in anyway. Hardly a response that creates confidence. Pardon me if in this day and age I don't exactly trust the public facing data retention policies of private companies. I agree that brick and mortar vendors ask for ID all the time (in the US, at least), but as you said I'm comfortable having a human peruse it, not so much having them store it in a digital format.
- codezero 13y ago
  It's up to you at this point. I think it's a bit unusual that they won't accept it after being redacted. You can try just sending it redacted anyways. Leaving name/address/dob/photo seems reasonable. If it's sufficiently high resolution, I can't see that they will be terribly bothered. For reference, by the way, I work at Quora, and have done a lot of work relating to enforcing real names on the site. We have asked for photo ID, but specifically ask for details to be redacted. The only things that will escalate something to this level of scrutiny are multiple red flags that signal a suspicion of abuse. I imagine that because there is a financial transaction involved, DigitalOcean has different procedures and looks for different red flags.

kohanz 13y ago

Thanks for your helpful comment. I asked if I could redact anything and received the response: A scan of the entire ID would suffice. It's for verification, we do not store it in anyway. Hardly a response that creates confidence. Pardon me if in this day and age I don't exactly trust the public facing data retention policies of private companies. I agree that brick and mortar vendors ask for ID all the time (in the US, at least), but as you said I'm comfortable having a human peruse it, not so much having them store it in a digital format.

codezero 13y ago
It's up to you at this point. I think it's a bit unusual that they won't accept it after being redacted. You can try just sending it redacted anyways. Leaving name/address/dob/photo seems reasonable. If it's sufficiently high resolution, I can't see that they will be terribly bothered. For reference, by the way, I work at Quora, and have done a lot of work relating to enforcing real names on the site. We have asked for photo ID, but specifically ask for details to be redacted. The only things that will escalate something to this level of scrutiny are multiple red flags that signal a suspicion of abuse. I imagine that because there is a financial transaction involved, DigitalOcean has different procedures and looks for different red flags.