Identity verification

[Eldin]

This has been brought many times in the past.
You could link Steam account to your ID card and have Verified Steam account.
One person could have only one verified account because you can use your ID card with only one account.

Basically if you get banned on your Verified account, you could never have another verified account in your life.
Steam could give us option in matchmaking to play only with other verified accounts (This could be used in all games that enable this feature) so we wouldn't be matched against cheaters anymore.
Even if person with verified account cheats, that will be the last time in their entire life.

Identity verification could be used for stuff like account recovery, making impossible for fake accounts to impersonate someone else, and many more stuff.


But the main problem is how to do this.
Taking picture of ID card won't work because that can be easily manipulated.
So today, I accidentally found this app on Google Play
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.innovalor.nfciddocshowcase

Basically what it does is use camera to scan that code from the back side
And it uses NFC to scan chip that is inside the card.

It can check are content of the card and chip authentic.
It gets all information like picture, full name, gender, nationality, date of birth, personal number, document number, issuer, issuing state, issuance date, date of expiry and many more stuff.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1848027734

Here's the video of how it works (sorry for bad blur)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB6XTZ5_NlY

Steam could make something like this in their Mobile Authenticator app.

[🜂∴🜏 Cassie]

The problem with this idea, is that it would create privacy issues.

And with GDPR, if someone decides they want to delete all their personal information, does that mean their account gets unverified and their identification info gets purged?

[Eldin]

Escrito originalmente por ΛΞΚ-999:

The problem with this idea, is that it would create privacy issues.

What privacy issues?
Only Valve would have access to that info.
And you don't have to verify account if you're afraid about your privacy

Escrito originalmente por ΛΞΚ-999:

And with GDPR, if someone decides they want to delete all their personal information, does that mean their account gets unverified and their identification info gets purged?

I don't know. It's not up to me to decide about those things.

This has been suggested before. I just posted it again because I think that this could be the best way to do it.

[JPMcMillen]

Escrito originalmente por ΛΞΚ-999:

The problem with this idea, is that it would create privacy issues.

And with GDPR, if someone decides they want to delete all their personal information, does that mean their account gets unverified and their identification info gets purged?

It would depend on what Valve had to save. If there was some sort of unique number for each persons issued ID* then that's all they would actually need to save. The other information may be useful when initially setting up an account to verify someones identity, but after that it's not all that relevant. If someone tried to setup a 2nd account, they wouldn't be able to because their ID was already used.

Of course, the problem is making sure people information is secure otherwise you would see more peoples identities getting stolen.

* Unique ID would include a country code + an ID number issued by the persons government. The country code is each nation is only responsible for making sure there are not duplicate ID numbers issued.

[Tito Shivan]

You know not every country has ID, right?

Also, people have made a stink of having to own a phone in order to trade... and you're asking them to not only have a phone, but one with NFC (Which also isn't a thing in many countries, IE: China)?

Also. people have a right to second chances and make stupid mistakes. You're denying cheaters the chance to change their ways.

Imagine not being able to play ever again because you once were young and stupid.

I know cheaters are annoying. But killing flies with nukes isn't the solution.

[Eldin]

Escrito originalmente por Tito Shivan:

You know not every country has ID, right?

Also, people have made a stink of having to own a phone in order to trade... and you're asking them to not only have a phone, but one with NFC (Which also isn't a thing in many countries, IE: China)?

Also. people have a right to second chances and make stupid mistakes. You're denying cheaters the chance to change their ways.

Imagine not being able to play ever again because you once were young and stupid.

I know cheaters are annoying. But killing flies with nukes isn't the solution.

It works with passport too.

Coincidentally, the phone in the video (OnePlus One) is phone by Chinese manufacturer.

If you get banned, you could create another account and play game with it (you just wouldn't be verified)
And if you were young, you wouldn't have ID in the first place.

But because some people think ban for life is overkill, Valve could maybe make ID Card usable again 10 years after ban.

[Wolf Knight]

Escrito originalmente por Eldin:

Escrito originalmente por Tito Shivan:

You know not every country has ID, right?

Also, people have made a stink of having to own a phone in order to trade... and you're asking them to not only have a phone, but one with NFC (Which also isn't a thing in many countries, IE: China)?

Also. people have a right to second chances and make stupid mistakes. You're denying cheaters the chance to change their ways.

Imagine not being able to play ever again because you once were young and stupid.

I know cheaters are annoying. But killing flies with nukes isn't the solution.

It works with passport too.

Coincidentally, the phone in the video (OnePlus One) is phone by Chinese manufacturer.

If you get banned, you could create another account and play game with it (you just wouldn't be verified)
And if you were young, you wouldn't have ID in the first place.

But because some people think ban for life is overkill, Valve could maybe make ID Card usable again 10 years after ban.

and what do you do if an account is compromised? or someone used a computer that had cheats on it but they did no know the cheat was there? grats, your banned for 10 years for doing nothing wrong. cybercafes are a thing in some countries where computers are slightly out of the reach of most households.

[Eldin]

Escrito originalmente por Wolf Knight:

and what do you do if an account is compromised? or someone used a computer that had cheats on it but they did no know the cheat was there? grats, your banned for 10 years for doing nothing wrong. cybercafes are a thing in some countries where computers are slightly out of the reach of most households.

You just create new account, same like you would do it if that happens right now.

You just couldn't get verified account for the next 10 years.

[Wolf Knight]

Escrito originalmente por Eldin:

Escrito originalmente por Wolf Knight:

and what do you do if an account is compromised? or someone used a computer that had cheats on it but they did no know the cheat was there? grats, your banned for 10 years for doing nothing wrong. cybercafes are a thing in some countries where computers are slightly out of the reach of most households.

You just create new account, same like you would do it if that happens right now.

You just couldn't get verified account for the next 10 years.

and what is the point of being "verified"? its starting to sound like CSGO Prime, dont see a need for both Prime and "verified".

[JPMcMillen]

Escrito originalmente por Tito Shivan:

You know not every country has ID, right?

Also, people have made a stink of having to own a phone in order to trade... and you're asking them to not only have a phone, but one with NFC (Which also isn't a thing in many countries, IE: China)?

Also. people have a right to second chances and make stupid mistakes. You're denying cheaters the chance to change their ways.

Imagine not being able to play ever again because you once were young and stupid.

I know cheaters are annoying. But killing flies with nukes isn't the solution.

There's also another side to this beyond gaming.

What if you could not only verify your Steam account, but also Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc... . Now imagine if there was a feature where you could either mute or block all people without verified accounts. Imagine how much online harassment would drop when people can't just create anonymous shell accounts to keep attacking someone after they have been blocked. Then most people wouldn't be able to attack people anonymously from the shadows. Yeah, government bot accounts would still exist as country could just manufacture fake ID's, but that's really a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people online.

And maybe society needs to do a better job of teaching our children that "young and stupid" isn't a valid excuse and that your actions can have life long consequences.

[Matt]

What would a verified account on Steam mean? Most people have no personal info tied to their Steam profile.

[Start_Running]

Escrito originalmente por Eldin:

Escrito originalmente por ΛΞΚ-999:

The problem with this idea, is that it would create privacy issues.

What privacy issues?
Only Valve would have access to that info.
And you don't have to verify account if you're afraid about your privacy

That's exactly the issue. Valve would have it, everyone at valve would have access to it and anyuone with access to valve's systems could potentially get it. and it doesn't solve the bigger problem. There;'s no way to tell if the id in question actually belongs to the person doing the scanning.. never mind for the id to have any manner of verification it would require Valve to have access to the Databases of various governments... that's not gonna happen. Can you imagin a company like Tencent implementaing that sort of thing. How big of a stink would that raise in the USA?"

Escrito originalmente por ΛΞΚ-999:

And with GDPR, if someone decides they want to delete all their personal information, does that mean their account gets unverified and their identification info gets purged?

I don't know. It's not up to me to decide about those things.

But that's one of the things you need to think about when coming up with ideas. Otherwise anyone could come up with ' "Submarine made of Cake" and say getting it to actually work is something for other people to consider.

This has been suggested before. I just posted it again because I think that this could be the best way to do it.

Yoyu should have read the threads that brought it up before because your idea hashits the exact same wall those other ideas do.

[MancSoulja]

I don't have and ID card or a passport. Would I be expected to fork out £95 (120 USD) just to play online? Sounds like a deal.

[Eldin]

Escrito originalmente por Matt:

What would a verified account on Steam mean? Most people have no personal info tied to their Steam profile.

It would mean that verified account belongs to a real person that's using the Steam the way it's intended.
One person wouldn't be able to create multiple verified accounts.

So if you're playing only with other verified people, it's almost impossible to have cheaters in a mach. If verified person cheats and get banned, they can't just create another account and be verified again. They could only play with other unverified people (and verified people that haven't checked "Match only with other verified accounts")

Same with trading. Now million of bots are adding people and trying to scam them.
But if you're trading only with verified people, there are much less chances that they'll try to scam you. (Because bots can't have verified accounts and if person with verified account tries to scam someone, Valve has their real info and maybe if sometime in future scamming items becomes cyber-criminalism police might get involved.

If your account somehow gets stolen, you could use ID as one of the proofs of account ownership.

And what JPMcMillen said in post #9 is interesting.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

You can already copy CC data from a card. You would be able to do the same with this.

If you can copy the data from the card / ID, you can edit the info too.

It doesnt sound so easy to work around, but give people a reason and they will find ways, and this would be easy to get aorund, unless youre suggesting that Steam should be accessing every country / state government database to validate info. Thats insane.

[Eldin]

Escrito originalmente por MancSoulja:

I don't have and ID card or a passport. Would I be expected to fork out £95 (120 USD) just to play online? Sounds like a deal.

Why you wouldn't be able to play online?
If you don't verify account nothing would change for you.
You just wouldn't be able to play in "Verified accounts only" matches.