Tell HN: You now need a government id in order to create an Anthropic account
I don't know if this is totally new, but I just can't believe it. I remember that they requested a telephone number 2 years ago, which was already way too much. But now they forward you to a scetchy website called withpersona.com and want you to make a selife with your passport.
Discussion Highlights (4 comments)
mmh0000
I never signed up for Anthropic for the telephone reason. Instead, I bought Kagi and OpenRouter and use Claude through those.
Animats
I can't even get that far in trying to sign up for Claude. Years ago, I told Constant Contact's (a/k/a Constant Spammer) legal department to block all emails to "animats.com", which was an option hidden away in their terms of service. Back then, they were just a spam service provider. Now, legit companies use them for "deliverability". Anthropic, which has some kind of co-marketing thing with Constant Contact, seems to use them for verification emails. Signup verification emails can't reach me. So I can't even start sign up.
bluefirebrand
I think it's wild what tech companies think they should be entitled to I have been trying to reactivate an old Facebook account to get access to marketplace, but Facebook wants me to give them a photo id. My username and password is not sufficient, or email 2fa or anything. They want a copy of my government id. Hell no. Same with this. Why should anyone give Anthropic this sort of info just to access their service. It's ridiculous
millzlane
I like it. I always wondered what a website would look like that only allowed Americans to register. I'm speaking of Authentication of the person.