Same in Ireland. In France I've also seen a combination of SMS and pre-shared secret (SMS asking for a code from a grid printed in a small card you can store in your wallet).
It uses the SIM to implement a challenge-response mechanism where a PIN is prompted by your phone.
While not perfect, it's vastly better than using SMS, without being less convenient.
I don't know if other places leverage the fact that SIMs are smart cards which are perfectly able to perform this kind of stuff given the proper infrastructure.
In the US and many other places, prepaid cards are not anonymous. IIRC you need ID of some kind to buy them in Germany, for example (similarly for SIM cards)
I used to have one from BNP Paribas in France. But they've phased that out to improve my security by using their app. Which was fine, since I didn't need to cart that fob around. But then they went and improved it even further for my company account by switching from the app to SMS.
In the UK (okay, not EU anymore but it was until recently) anonymous SIM cards are incredibly easy to come by. You can buy them in most corner shops, supermarkets, and petrol stations. Both big and small operators.
If you buy a SIM card from an operator's store they might ask for ID but they didn't the last time I did this (a couple of years ago).
When I last flew into the UK there were even prepaid SIM card vending machines, provided by the network operator, in the entrance/exit to the airport.
COntrast that with Switzerland, where I had to provide my passport to buy a SIM card.
In Ireland you can buy a SIM card without ID and pay cash. Similarly with mobile phones too -- I would very much doubt the US is the only country where this is possible. Data protection is generally taken much more seriously in Europe than the US.
French operator Free sells prepaid SIM cards through vending machines in many places. No ID check, totally automated, machine spits out a SIM of your chosen type along with a receipt with necessary info.
In New Zealand, >90% of phones are pre-paid and anonymous (unless you opt to fill in your personal details online).
It's strange to think that other countries have restrictions on buying SIM cards, I can literally go to the corner store and get one for $20, with $20 credit on it.
I find it interesting that Germany is one country which does this. A country which has strict privacy regulations and people prefer to use cash rather than cards, but they are happy to carry a device which can track their every movement and is tied to their government identification. This isn't an EU thing, there are quite a few EU countries where you can buy and activate a SIM without any ID.
Have there been any cases where the people have spoken out against such regulations, and they have been reversed?
While traveling in Europe, my mom got a SIM card so she could have Internet access. It came with a phone number, which she didn't tell anybody. A couple days later she got a call from a number that matched the first 6 digits of her home number.
Therefore: The SIM card vendor in Europe shared not only her number, but additional personal data allowing the robo-caller to determine her home number in the US.
In my country we have to activate prepaid debit cards by SMS, meaning that the prepaid cards are tied to our real life identity via our phone numbers.
Prepaid SIM cards need to be registered and tied to your SSN here, so a prepaid SIM would not work to get around this problem.
You might think I live in some authoritarian state or something but I actually live in Norway. In general life is good but I find these things disconcerting :(
I guess it might be doable to use one of those online services that will send and receive SMS on your behalf without registering any personal information. But I didn’t try that and for all I know it could be that SMS from such numbers would be rejected or flagged by the bank.
Do countries really require ID to get a phone number?
I can buy a prepaid sim card in our Hofer (=Aldi) for 2eur, no verification, no nothing,... they even have the same barcode on, so even Aldi does not know which is mine, and I can pay in cash. I can buy a refill there with cash too, but just to receive an sms, I don't need one, because receiving messages is free.
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