Toward Ethical Onboarding: A Framework for Responsible Digital Identity Verification

This paper introduces a normative framework for ethically responsible onboarding within digital Know Your Customer (KYC) processes. It identifies cognitive and contextual vulnerabilities often overlooked in current verification systems and proposes principles such as autonomy, fairness, and harm reduction. Through an interdisciplinary approach—drawing from ethics, law, and digital governance—the framework offers concrete recommendations for policymakers, fintech developers, and regulators. The analysis aligns with European regulations including MiCA, DORA, and GDPR, and contributes to the broader discourse on responsible digital identity in Europe. This version of the paper is currently under preliminary review at SSRN (Abstract ID: 5399221) as part of the FutureFinTech Working Paper Series. The Zenodo upload serves as an open-access preprint to support early dissemination and citation.