You Shouldn't Need an ID to Use the Internet

Somewhere along the way, the internet started forgetting what made it valuable.

Anonymity. Independence. The ability to create something, publish an opinion, or participate in a community without first proving who you are.

Now, we're watching more services move toward identity checks, facial verification, and increasingly invasive methods of proving that users are who they claim to be.

These systems are frequently presented as necessary for safety.

But we think there's a question that deserves considerably more attention.

When did giving a company your identity become the price of participating online?

At Kraftify, we're taking a different position.

We will never voluntarily make government-issued ID verification or biometric identity checks a general requirement for hosting a website.

And we think the wider technology industry needs to reconsider where it's heading.

Privacy isn't suspicious

Not wanting to identify yourself publicly doesn't mean you have something to hide.

A political activist might need anonymity to criticize an authoritarian government. A journalist might need to protect their identity while investigating powerful institutions.

A developer might simply prefer separating their personal life from their projects. And an ordinary person might not want their legal name, face, and private information stored in another company's database.

All of these are legitimate reasons. People shouldn't have to explain why they deserve privacy.

Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.

Edward Snowden

Anonymity is not evidence of wrongdoing.

Yet increasingly, online safety is discussed as though identifying every user would somehow eliminate malicious behavior. It won't.

People can commit abuse under their real names. Identity verification doesn't make someone trustworthy, and a lack of identification doesn't make someone dangerous.

Behavior should matter more than identity.

Look at what surveillance is becoming

Consider Flock Safety. It operates automated license plate reader technology used by law enforcement and other customers across the United States. Its cameras record vehicles, license plates, locations, and timestamps.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Flock's network has expanded to more than 120,000 license plate readers nationwide.

The ACLU has raised concerns about large-scale location tracking, data sharing, and the potential misuse of this information. It has also criticized AI-based capabilities that can analyze driving patterns and identify supposedly suspicious behavior.

Think about the implications. An ordinary person driving through their neighborhood can become part of a searchable record of vehicle movements without being suspected of committing a crime.

That record can potentially reveal sensitive patterns about a person's life.

Flock argues that its customers control data sharing, that it does not sell customer data, and that its systems have privacy safeguards. It has also introduced shorter default retention periods.

Those safeguards deserve consideration. But they don't eliminate the central question.

Should this information have been collected about ordinary people in the first place?

Flock isn't an identity-verification service, and hosting providers aren't license plate surveillance companies. The technologies are different.

The underlying privacy concern, however, is relevant to both. When systems collect sensitive information about people at scale, they create opportunities for that information to be accessed, connected, misused, or exposed.

And once that infrastructure exists, its capabilities can extend far beyond what ordinary people originally expected.

References

• ACLU: The civil liberties risks of Flock's camera network
• ACLU: AI-generated suspicion using movement patterns
• Flock Safety: Privacy and data-sharing position

Safety shouldn't require surrendering your identity

We aren't against protecting users. We're building Cerberus specifically because harmful content and exploitation deserve serious attention.

But we reject the idea that collecting government IDs and facial scans from ordinary website owners is the default answer to those problems.

A government-issued ID tells us very little about whether a website contains prohibited content. A facial scan doesn't tell us whether someone is exploiting another person. And a legal name isn't an alternative to investigating actual violations.

We would rather develop systems that evaluate content and conduct than build a collection of sensitive identity records that our users never wanted us to possess.

Our goal is to collect only the information necessary to operate Kraftify securely, provide our services, and satisfy applicable legal obligations.

That doesn't mean promising absolute anonymity or immunity from lawful investigations. It means refusing to turn routine hosting into an identity checkpoint.

Our commitment

As we develop Kraftify, we're establishing several principles that will guide our approach to identity and privacy.

• No general mandatory government-ID verification. We will not voluntarily require ordinary users to upload passports, driver's licenses, or other government identification simply to host a website.
• No general mandatory facial verification. We will not make facial scans or biometric identity checks a routine condition of hosting.
• No ideological identity checks. We don't believe people should need to reveal their political beliefs, religious affiliations, or personal convictions to publish online.
• No unnecessary collection of sensitive information. If we don't need particular personal information to operate a service, we shouldn't be collecting it without a legitimate reason.
• No surveillance disguised as moderation. Our moderation systems should identify actual violations, not build identity dossiers on ordinary website owners.