Recent KYC (know your customer) norms has become a pain in the a$$ without doing a thing to increase security. Experiences mentioned here are not common and the list of "acceptable documents" is non-standard at best.

I recently applied for and got a pre-paid SIM card and Vodafone at first refused to accept documents that were on their own website and I had to fight my way to make them accept the documentation.

Frankly, if security is the issue, this non-sense does nothing to enhance it. If someone wanted to do something - it is not hard to get a prepaid card from outside with roaming activated and make all the calls you want without a trace....so security theater at best.