Privacy.com is, legally, a bank. Banks have always had aggressive KYC requirements, but it's only gotten worse in recent years.

I went through the sign up and they made me take pictures of my face with Persona.

Once I did that, I then declined to use this other platform, Plaid for storing my card. Instead I submitted my debit card information directly.

The logged in page said that my account was pending, and would be verified in a 1-2 business days. It's been like 5 days now.

I dug around on reddit, and found someone with a similar experience. They theorized that delayed, or even indefinite account "verification" is a way of soft punishing people who don't submit to every single privacy invasive thing.

I really only wanted protection from fraud, overcharching, and bad merchants, so I wish this was a feature my bank would provide.

EDIT: see other comment, Privacy.comm verified me.