BJ's
 

Mrs Fox and I just spent fifteen minutes in line at BJ's Customer Service desk (one server; four waiting in line) to join the club using their latest mailed offer.

A bit of a shock when the server told us we needed a driver's license or passport and, no, the copy on our phone was not sufficient; it had to be the original.

Got home and tried joining on-line - no problem; no ID needed; took less than five minutes in total.

The reason no id needed: when you try to do stuff online using your own devices, they already KNOW who you are. They have your IP address, they have installed cookies into your device.

Showing a photograph of your drivers license is useless, meaningless, and possibly damaging to YOU. You should probably delete that license from your phone, if you value your security.

By the way - a cop pulling you over for a traffic violation doesn't care how many photographs of identifications you have loaded on your phone. They want your actual license, and the registration in your glove compartment.

I could be signing up from a third party computer (in a library, say), not using my own device. No personal info on that.

Yes plus there are methods to not share your IP and other personal info.

BJ's mentions using ID.me.

BJ’s Membership Terms

BJ’s also reserves the right to use ID.me (“ID.me”), a third-party services provider, to assist BJ’s in verifying eligibility for certain membership types and promotions. Eligibility-related information shared with ID.me may be shared with BJ’s for membership-related purposes.

Bigger picture problem. We are being forced away from face to face interactions. The world is going online whether we like it or not. I very much prefer to do business looking my counterparty eye to eye, in a situation I can control and nobody can steal my data. Call me old school, that’s exactly what I am!