There is no official verification of identity here that I know of. They tie the account to an email and were using SMS. My badge is from Steem verify who charge a small fee to do a manual check. It's not obligatory to do an intro post with a photo, but people do that to prove the account is real. There are still ways to get a more anonymous account if you want it. I don't need that.

Steemit Inc are more concerned with reducing the number of bulk accounts that get created by scripts. See this update