Popular platform for physical selling and buying bitcoins LocalBitcoins has updated the user agreement and privacy policy. The new rules come into force on 25 may, and in some cases can require that users download the documents confirming their identity.

The possibility of verification through Jumio Netverify system was introduced on LocalBitcoins still a few back, but still was voluntary and was intended primarily to increase confidence in users. However, earlier this year, in social networks began to appear that the platform began to demand verification for traders significant amounts of funds.

Later, the founder and CEO of the Finnish company Nikolaus Kangas stated that he intends to remain “law-abiding businessman,” and at least in the U.S., the company must report certain transactions that may look suspicious. This applies to transactions worth more than $10 000 and the transaction apparently intended to circumvent this limit.

Now the company has officially updated its user agreement and privacy policy, explaining the majority of innovations the change in the European legislation.

In particular, LocalBitcoins refers to the General Data Protection Regulation — the General EU regulation on the protection of personal data (2016/679 Regulation — GDPR) which will come into force on 25 may 2018.

At the same time the company emphasizes that identity verification will continue to be an optional procedure, but in some situations users may need to download the documents. We can talk about transactions above certain limits, hacking accounts, investigating fraud and recovering access to your account.

“Our main task is to make LocalBitcoins reliable and safe platform for trading bitcoin. We want to be sure that no one is using our services for money laundering and other illegal activities,” — said on the website LocalBitcoins.

The company also noted that most of the fraudulent transactions that have been identified on LocalBitcoins, were associated with attempts to launder illegal incomes.

Among the new provisions it is also possible to allocate a requirement to have more than one account for a private person. Companies can have multiple accounts, but each account must be managed by only one employee. Also introduced an age limit for using the service – LocalBitcoins is only available for persons over the age of 16.

In the section describing the new privacy policy, the company pays attention that the personal data are stored mainly within the European economic area. However, in some cases, user information may be transferred to third parties abroad. The number of service providers that LocalBitcoins can transmit data about users, lists Jumio Netverify, Mixpanel, Sentry.io, Google Analytics, Sendgrid, Twilio, Nexmo and TM4B.

Users also can at any time delete your account, which means automatic termination of the agreement with LocalBitcoins. However, even after deletion of account a large part of the user data stored in the company for another 5 years.

LocalBitcoins also reminds us that effective at the end of the month a General EU regulation on the protection of personal data gives the user the right at any time to access your information, modify it and delete the irrelevant part, and to object its processing.

We will remind, in April the European Parliament approved a package of new measures to combat money laundering in the EU, which intends to strengthen control over bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Under the new rules, to prevent the anonymity of cryptocurrency exchange platform, virtual wallets and banking institutions are required to monitor clients, including requirements for verification of customer and the platform and service providers storing crypto-currencies needs to be registered.

Source