
Identifying PayPal’s Customers to Enforce Trade Sanctions
Date: Monday, March 31 @ 23:40:22 EST Topic: Civil Liberties
PayPal, the online payment service, currently contacts its international customers requiring them to identify themselves for trade sanctions enforcement purposes. PayPal’s operation is part of
the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s ("OFAC")
effort to enforce trade related sanction. OFAC, of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, and those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
As discovered by LawMeme, PayPal was required to contact some of its international customers and ask them to go through an extensive identification process. Paypal requires its international customers to help determine their identity by sending :”1.Copy of Drivers License/Photo Identification. 2.Copy of utility bill from your home address. 3. Copy of a document showing your date and place of birth.”.
This enforcement effort is operated by
e-bay and paypal’s evolving compliance department
. This practice raises again the question of the role of private companies in law enforcement efforts. Should we require commercial entities to serve as “private law enforcement” agencies? How can we keep the constitutional and legal restrains on the operation of law enforcement when it is conducted by private entities which are publicly unaccountable? Should there be certain suspicion of an illegal activity before investigation is conducted? And practically, How will this mandatory identification process of international customers effect the evolving market for online payments?
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