Identity verification for phone numbers

Before your workspace gets its first phone number, Freesbe asks the admin buying it to verify their identity. This applies to every number, local and toll-free, in every country, including the United States and Canada.

Why we verify

Phone numbers can reach anyone, which also makes them a tool for fraud: robocalls, spoofed caller ID, spam texts and scams. Telecom regulators and carriers require the companies that hand out numbers to know who their customers are, and to be able to show it.

• Know your customer. Regulators such as the FCC in the United States and the CRTC in Canada expect phone providers to check who they give numbers to, and to stop service that’s used for illegal calls.
• Caller ID you can trust. Calls from your numbers are signed under STIR/SHAKEN, the system that tells the person you call that the number really is yours. Carriers only give calls the best rating when the provider has verified the customer behind the number.
• Texting rules. Carriers only deliver business texts from senders they can identify. Unverified senders get filtered or blocked.
• Protecting you. Verification keeps your numbers from being taken over, ported away or used by someone pretending to be your business.

The rules that apply

• United States. The FCC requires voice providers to take effective steps to know their customers, so they don’t originate illegal robocalls, and to answer traceback requests that ask who placed a call. The TRACED Act and STIR/SHAKEN tie each call to a provider that vouches for the caller. Business texting needs registered, verified senders (10DLC for local numbers, toll-free verification for toll-free ones).
• Canada. The CRTC requires caller ID authentication (STIR/SHAKEN) and enforces the Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules. Commercial texts also fall under Canada’s anti-spam law, CASL.
• Emergency calls. 911 calls have to reach help at a real place, so a number has to belong to a real, reachable person or business.

This explains our reasons; it isn’t legal advice.

Verifying once also keeps the whole service cleaner, so calls and texts from every Freesbe customer, yours included, are more likely to be answered and delivered.

What we ask for

It takes about two minutes, with your phone and a government photo ID.

1. In the Admin Center, under Phone → Numbers, click Buy a number. If nobody in your workspace has verified yet, Freesbe asks you to do it first. Click Verify my identity.

2. Scan the QR code with your phone’s camera and open the link. No phone handy? Click Open the link on this device and use your computer’s camera instead.

3. On your phone, take a picture of your driver’s license, passport or ID card, then a quick selfie (you’ll turn your head a little, so we know it’s really you and not a photo).

4. Keep the Freesbe window open. It moves on by itself: Waiting for your phone, then Checking your ID. Most checks take a minute or two, and as soon as yours is approved you can pick your number.

Sometimes a person at our verification partner looks at the pictures too. Freesbe then says A person is reviewing your ID. That can take up to a business day; you can close the window and come back to Buy a number later. We email you either way: Your identity is verified with a link straight to Phone system, or, if it didn’t pass, what to do differently and how to try again.

You verify once for the whole workspace: after that, any admin can buy numbers. Next to Buy a number you’ll see who verified and when. The link on the QR code works for 24 hours. If another admin already started, Freesbe says so, and you can wait for them or verify yourself.

Some numbers and countries also need documents about your business, like a business registration or proof of address. Those numbers are marked Needs documents when you pick them.

How your information is used

Your ID and selfie go to our identity verification partner over an encrypted connection. They’re used to verify you and to meet the rules above, and nothing else. They’re never shown to other people in your workspace. See our privacy policy for how long we keep them.

Freesbe itself doesn’t keep a copy of your ID or selfie, or what was read from them. It only records that the check passed, who did it and when.

If the check doesn’t pass

Freesbe says Your ID didn’t pass. Click Try again and take the pictures again in good light, with the whole ID in the frame, or use a different ID. If the link ran out before you finished, Try again gives you a new one. A workspace can start a few checks a day; if it still doesn’t pass, contact support@freesbe.net and we’ll help you finish it another way.