New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
Anyone here ordered from HETZNER, got rejected, and suggested to try another company?
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
That would suck for them then.
The law I referred to does not prevent a company from taking precautions, or asking a method of identification. It only addresses the national ID.
No, I don't mean that.
If you're right and this is the case, it must be legal in Germany, so end of story.
Nevertheless, Hetzner's decision to provide or refuse service is clearly not based on the ID alone: it's also based on the estimation of risk, which precedes any request for an ID. So it seems more accurate to me to say that the ID can lower the risk and consequently lead to a decision to provide service (despite the initial risk), rather than to say that a decision to refuse service is based on the lack of ID alone.
Yes, again, those who don't want to show their national ID generally don't want to show any document that identifies them, so the technical distinction between national ID and other identifying documents doesn't really help such people.
Okay.
You can use whichever term you prefer. If a company only provides a certian service if a request is met, then its not a request, its clearly a demand as not complying with the request comes with a denial of service.
As per the law, this request is not lawful. It doesn't matter if we agree with this or not.
As per the law, if a company "requests" a copy of the ID in order to provide service, then the citizen should file a complain.
It also clarifies that in order to file a complain which will get the company fined, you need to prove they requested it in order to provide the service. If it was done in person, then the citizen needs a witness to confirm its true that the company denied service if this request was not meet.
Maybe you should clarify what "misinformation" you are referring to. Ya know, so people can provide the proof you are looking for.
@404error, no offence intended... is English your first language? Asking is not the same as a demand. A demand implies some kind of obligation. You're not obligated to use commercial services.
I know you didn't intend to offend, it's all good
I understand what mean, you are referring to the literal meaning of the word, but in this situation the "request" becomes a "demand" because if not met, it ends the process in which the request was made, with no alternative being presented. It's a "my way or the highway" kind of deal.
No, English is not my first language.
I understand both points of view here, the privacy concern and the companies concern, I for one, think that heavily redacted copies are dandy, I don't see all the commotion.
The law is also not new, its actually more accommodating now as you can provide a copy of the ID if you decide you want to (as opposed to previously that you just couldn't), I think all the ado is that now companies and citizens can get fined and before they couldn't. It was a "it's illegal but we won't do anything about it" kind of deal.
Now the fine goes from €250 to €750 a piece.
Actually the law is 10 years old, and everyone left and right were breaking it, even government services. People are only complaining now because of the possible fines... that's my take.
HETZNER usually asks Chinese users to provide id CARDS, which I think is an act of discrimination, so. Brother, there are many great companies in this world, such as alibaba, amazon, Linode and so on_____From Google Translate
I can't go out my way to preach about international law, because I'm not qualified. What I would say, is there's 2 basic tenets of common sense that applies.
1) When you're purchasing a service, you're entering a contract, and both parties need to know who the other legal entity is
2) Fraud is a common crime and most jurisdictions require 'best efforts' by companies to combat it
You can simply refuse to identify yourself and companies can simply refuse to provide the service. It's boring common sense, I don't see it ever changing. You can talk about privacy but it's your choice to remain private or not.
I understand what you're saying, but the reality ain't that clear cut.
There's plenty of reasons that companies can't use to deny service, this is just a new one.
And the government here defends that not providing a copy of one's national ID does not prevent a company to verify one's identity.
You’ve been asked a thousand times by @Lee and you’re yet to comply.
Well, I'd put it at the ratio of 100000:1 where "company refuses service, customer moves on" versus the court case saying it should be otherwise. You can argue anything in court, costs money though.
Actually I did comply, and you as the "LET lawyer" should read the convo closer before accusing people.
No court case, you just file a complaint, and if true, the company is fined. In theory its all pretty easy and smooth. But knowing public services... the reality may differ.
Edit: The complaint is to be submitted to the public body that regulates Privacy Data Protection.
Share, let the OP find out the veracity of the process.
Thanks, I read through it. It is indeed very specific to your country only and what happens within it, I understand why they are doing it and it makes sense.
That said it has no bearing on a company/organisation in another country asking for ID. They are not subject to those rules.
Will come back to you by PM on the other points.
It doesn't apply to the OP, as I clarified in my second post, after looking further into it, it is a national law.
Someone else clarified the German law in regards to this, see below;
I just skimmed through the earlier stuff, ya know, knowing most of it was probably uninformed horse shit :-)
Someone mentioned earlier about it being 'illegal in some countries'. Maybe it is, but it doesn't make sense to raise it in a thread where it doesn't apply.
The likes of the Cayman Islands or Tuvalu may have interesting/special laws, which can make for interesting topical discussion, but TBF when it comes to EU/USA/China which covers what, 1/3rd of the world population, about half of economic wealth, that kind of thing.... when doing business they have those laws in mind.
Yeah, I get it.
I'm in the EU so l ya know.. we tend to think that every new law is at the discretion of the EU, thus somewhat applied everywhere else in the EU .
I clarified it and was still being engaged so I went with it. But you might have noticed that several of my post included the "disclamer_ that this law I am referring to is of no concern to hetzner.
It was interesting is to learn that there was a similar law in Germany , that was recently changed. So I guess hetzner used to break the law back then..
Again with the "it was illegal in Germany 'til last year" misinformation. Low quality/b&w/watermarked/censored/marked as "copy" ID scans were legal in Germany even before the BDSG reform in June 2017. The data protection law was and still is about private data handling and it's in the GDPR ballpark. The scans aren't used here to learn new data, but to verify data you've inserted (data that is necessary and that shall be obtained with due diligence even if this hurts your feelings). A specific and different piece of legislation addressed (and addresses) the usage of IDs; it was (and is) forbidden to store electronic scans of these IDs. It has been reiterated multiple times that a temporary electronic scan (read: a jpg), even if it's not a simple paper copy, is acceptable if it's a copy transmitted for identification purposes and if it's destroyed immediately.
The concept of jurisdiction is difficult to grasp sometimes.
@ricardo not even close to a third. :P
The sun never sets on the EU/USA/China empire
I ordered from Hetzner (for the first time) today, from the UK, about 6 hours ago. Their email indicated it'd be provisioned within 10 minutes, still waiting. No verification check.
Condemned.
Out of curiosity, what did you order? Cloud, dedi, auction server..
Interesting. I never had to show or upload my ID actually just provide personal details that's it. I am from Germany as well. I used PayPal as billing method. I had some cx servers (not the new cloud ones) and paid within 24-48hrs when I got the invoice. One time I forgot it and they friendly reminded me 2 weeks later and I kindly thanked them for that.
As far as I remember I created my Account around late '15 or early '16 and started using it mid '16.
There was a law about making copies of ID which was a bit of grey zone regarding in it's interpretation. But I think they have officially allowed it 1 or 2 yrs ago.
No other problems so far.
Dedi, EX40-SSD with an additional drive. Probably the additional drive that stopped it being fast tracked.
IIRC I created my first Hetzner, personal account (for testing) while browsing with a DC IP, didn't trigger any VPN flag and got immediately approved. Shortly thereafter from a residential IP I created a business account stating VIES VAT ID# and I've been asked
So, you can never tell. Only one other VPS/dedi business in Europe asked me for some additional documentation I didn't provide firsthand, albeit regarding the VAT ID# and not my handsome persona
not really, there was a proposal to address scans more in depth before pauswg but it has never been legislated in detail. As I said, I have to deal with this periodically (sadly). The only provision down there is against storing electronic copies of a scan and the grey area at best was revolving around the academic question if keeping a scan into RAM without saving it to rust should be considered as "storing" or not
It could be the case
care to name a few of those many countries?
as long as you are not a provider for power, water or pharmacy I don't see why a businesses should not be free to decide with whom to close contracts or not.
f.i. in germany 'contractual freedom' (which covers the choice of providing or denying service) is derived from 'freedom of action' which is part of the constitution (Art 2 GG) so something very strong here...
I assume that in many countries businesses are even required by law to have correct validated records on their customers identity (not talking id copies here) to declare their taxes properly, so they can't do anything else then denying service to those which they can't properly validate.
I've definitely seen pharmacies here turn down people with prescriptions (and call the police on them) because they know those people are up to no good/have a history of reselling their medications/etc, and share these lists with other pharmacies...
Crazy Germans on the loose
Any country where there are anti discrimination law.
Personal opinions and dandy et all, but.. they're not law.
I find it hard to believe that there aren't any limitations to that "contractual freedom", and, or other laws that supercede it. But if you say so....
I assume the same, yet we're talking about copies.
For instance, the law that I referred to, it does not deny a company the ability to verify the identity of a client/prospect, it only denies the company the right to force the client/prospect to provide a copy of their personal ID in return to provide the service/product.