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How Private Is Your Financial Data?
Our bank, BankDirect, is mailing customers a 'Notice of your Financial Privacy Rights', containing the following text: 'We may disclose information about you to our affiliates. Here are the kinds of information and the source of that information: Information about your transactions and experience with us, such as: Name, address, account balances, account activity, types of accounts, transaction history, and payment history. Federal law allows us to disclose the information listed above with our affiliates. You do not have the right to opt out of the disclosure of this information...We may disclose information about you to our affiliates: 1) to provide you with information about additional products and services; and 2) to better serve you, to help us save you time and money, and to help you understand your specific needs.' Am I the only one who is bothered that my bank is ready to share my transaction history, including my salary (direct deposit) and payments to merchants (online bill pay)? More importantly, are there any banks that don't share (or sell) their customers' private information? I couldn't help but notice that BankDirect's web site has a different
privacy policy, which reassuringly states 'We restrict access to nonpublic personal information about you to those employees who need to know that information to provide products or services to you.' Hmmm..."
Is it me, or is that massive paragraph of half bold half "normal" text the ugliest thing ever?
...because then they'd stop advertising to me, ever again! I only have forty nine cents in my bank account.
That mail must be fake...
Or is the difference between the US and Europe in privacy rights THIS big?
BankDirect's web site has a different privacy policy, which reassuringly states 'We restrict access to nonpublic personal information about you to those employees who need to know that information to provide products or services to you.' Hmmm..."
Wow. That seems like a glaring contradiction to me. How could they send out the e-mail you included above when their privacy policy is much more conservative? That seems like a lawsuit in the making...
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"For a number of years I have been familiar with the observation that the quality of programmers is a decreasing function of the density of go to statements in the programs they produce."
- Edsger Djikstra
"I either want less corruption, or more chance
to participate in it." -- Ashleigh Brilliant
The only way to keep your keep you financial data private, is to keep you in Gold in a safe deposit in a bank. Moreover Gold has intrinsic value as compared to paper money that has no intrinsic value.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
See that word "affiliate" in there? That means, basically, other divisions of the same corporate family. If they have a broker-dealer unit, for example, that's not technically part of the bank, so its ads are sent to you by an "affiliate." It's pointless to try to regulate information sharing within a single business, and don't believe anyone who says they will.
Nothing to see here, move along.
I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm, LLP does not necessarily endorse the contents of this message.
More importantly, are there any banks that don't share (or sell) their customers' private information?
It used to be, the banker was like the grocer or barber: a member of the community. But now, the banks are just trying to squeeze as much money out of the consumer as possible. Not that long ago, we didn't have transaction fees, teller fees, atm fees, etc. The banks have been slowly adding fees over the years in their quest for cash. Of course they'll sell your info, if it'll make them a buck or two.
And even if you do find an ethical bank who wont sell your information, your personal info will get out anyway.
I guess the only safe way to save money nowadays is to stuff it in a mattress.
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
Banks are trustworthy institutions. Given that corporations want information and will do anything to get it; I would prefer that by my bank distributes accurate information in a documented way.
In the current system, information is inferred and, it seems, simply made up. Why else wouyld we receive the totally irrelevent advertising that we do today? Some insignificant database somewhere has me listed as the wrong age, the wrong gender and with the wrong interests. At the moment this leads to me receiving catalogues for products I am not interested in (cosmetics, mainly, this month). For now, I can recycle these, but what if this information propogated and ended up somewhere important. I don't want the IRS, for example, kicking down my door claiming I've been lying on my tax returns just because they've got information that I am 40 years older than I really am.
while not a cure-all, seem a bit better on this front than a regular bank.
Ditch your bank. Join a CU.
BC
Here in the UK, rival banks make it very easy to switch - all you do is sign once and they move all your direct debits, etc. for you (I get frequent offers but I'm happy with my bank right now, so I don't know how well that works)
If you can't find a privacy friendly bank, or it's insanely hard to get all your banking services transfered, you could always randomize your spending habbits:
1. Withdraw all your cash and pay for everything through the whole month in cash
2. Withdraw all your cash and then pay it back in 2 days later. repeat.
3. Pay for everything on a credit card, then clear it at the end of the month.
4. Make frequent small withdrawls instead of weekly large withdrawls
at least then, you'll be partly masking what you're upto and providing less valuable information to their 'partners'....
I don't see one problem with a bank sharing information. As long as they aren't sharing pin numbers or other information that would allow someone to steal my identity, even thing is fine.
-BrentFirst of all, "affiliates" probably means companies with which the bank has a close relationship. For instance, many banks have outside companies do their data processing or do their online banking or bill pay services for them. There's really no way they could do these services without sharing your info.
As for banks that don't share your information, have you considered trying a credit union? Unlike banks whose main concern is making money for the shareholders, a credit union's main concern is providing the best service to their members because it is run by the members for the members.
As it states federal law says that they are allowed to do this. More worrisome is the list of "affiliates", which is usually included in these disclaimers. Most of the policies pose "affiliates" in such a way as to suggest that they are only internal departments and subsidiary companies. But, the fact is that affiliates also include marketing organizations and a lot more.
In a few cases the banks actually have a subsidiary marketing company whose product is marketing lists. In these cases the information is shared with the "affiliates" for "legitimate business purposes" but, the "affiliates" then turn around and resell your information to anyone with the cash.
Recently, I was contacted by a mortgage telemarketer, which I have never done business with. they had ALL of my data including transaction history. When I told them I wasn't interested and that their information was inaccurate they actually had the gall to ask me to correct the inaccurate data. The schmuck says, "We pay a lot of money to get this information and if we aren't getting the right information we need to know about it and you need to help us fix it.". Naturally, I advised him to get bent but it is still infuriating that ANYONE can get this information.
The problem goes further too. It's not just marketing companies that are working against us. The government is as well. No, I'm not a conspiracy theorist.
Few people realize that numerous government agencies provide personal information including your Social Security number to companies "with a legitimate business need for that information". They list examples of companies with legitimate business needs and the first example on the list is marketing companies.
Of course it sucks! But, the genie is out of the bottle.
Can anyone speakto and provide pointers to any EU privacy laws? It's time for some citizen initiatives in the US.
I've had accounts at Citibank and HSBC and IBM's local credit union, the credit union was by far the worst of the bunch, making up charges left and right, changing rules, fee schedules and pretty much anything they could, they're the only bank I have ever seen charge for your initial batch of checks, not only that, not telling you they would charge you for them
and to help you understand your specific needs.
I have a wife, and if necessary, a shrink for this purpose. I feel very much like this is one of those "we'll tell you what you can and cannot have or do, and you will like it".
If I were you I'd find another bank right away and LET THEM KNOW why you are leaving them. Your private information is private and should remain that way.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
"'We may disclose information about you to our affiliates..."
Typically a financial institution considers an affiliate to be another (smaller) bank owned by the same corporate parent. An affiliate may also be another company in the corporate structure. It does not necesarilly mean a 3rd party or independant company with a working relationship to the first company.
That said, I still consider my financial (or any personal info of mine) to be mine, and I want the right to know when this information is being traded or sold, and the right to opt out.
I humbly apologize to the community: I meant Regulation P, of course, not Reg E. The definition of affitiate I gave was, however, correct: it requires at least enough common ownership to constitute control. Amazon's "affiliates" are not Reg P affiliates.
I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm, LLP does not necessarily endorse the contents of this message.
Since you work for a .com company with a negative cash flow, maybe you should worry about how much longer you'll have a salary?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
From the link in the parent post:
This doesn't mean just a company they own - it means any other company in the corporate structure. So if your bank is owned by a company that owns a retailer, the retailer legally has access to your financial transactions. It is very common for banks to own or be owned by credit card companies, stock brokers, lenders, etc. They may in turn own smaller companies that sell products and services that can be financed.
The tree can get very large, which is why this regulation does not keep you safe. Who makes sure that some very small cousin company doesn't indiscriminanly sell mailing lists?
Heheh :) thanks :) I'll put a dictionary right next to the big fat pile of gold that's under my bed for my retirement. I'm sure that it will never lose value!
:)
(Being french, I find that it sounds more like "lause" instead of "looze") But hey, french is weird too
No contradiction at all. Note the words "employees who need to know that information to provide products or services to you". They are telling you that if they want to try to sell you more products or services, they will give your information to the sales department. They don't say anything about giving it only to those people who need it to service your existing accounts.
Nope, no sig
david duncan scott said:
Remember, if you can't either pack it or leave it within ten minutes, it owns you.
Thank you! You've just summed up quite eloquently an idea that had been germinating in the back of my mind for several months now. If you don't mind, I think this'll end up in my rotating ~/.signature list.
Sure. I think I copped it from Zelazney or somebody, though.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Paul Krugman wrote a nice article about this "gold bug" in Slate a while ago. Whatever you may think of him personally, the article sets forth the considerations crisply.
Anyone who feels paper money has no intrinsic value is encouraged to mail it to me. I'll pay the postage. And just try buying lunch with gold bullion. There are hardly any employed economists advocating gold or the gold standard, but it is worthwhile to discuss why these are inferior forms of money.
Think of your paper money as shares of stock in America Inc. If you don't believe in American solvency, consider that the rest of the world does. Two thirds of American currency is in circulation overseas, and America attracts trillions in foreign investment. I'm bullish on it, and note that gold has been a consistently lousy investment since the 80's, underperforming even inflation by failing to appreciate at all (the chart is not in constant dollars). Also, don't forget to deduct transportation or storage costs like that safe deposit box. Paper money did the same if you stuffed in under the mattress and failed to invest it in at least a passbook savings account or insured CD -- either of which handily outperformed gold.
This is Britain's implementation of (probably) the previous reply, but the .gov.uk website for it seems to have more English and less legalese, so I'll post it anyway:
dataprotection.gov.uk
I had to do a bit of stuff on this during A-Level Computing (A-Level = the academic qualification most British 16-to-19-year-olds are studying for) and it seems very sane and well thought out. America could probably benefit from something like this.
</karma-whore>
...I'll just take the pharmaceuticals. You can have the ammunition. With the right drugs, I won't *care* if you shoot me, or whether my Visa card still works.
Europe has a much higher sense of privacy for records and such. It has even caused problems for some U.S. businesses and exports. So f*ck you. ;-) (Actually, you'd be a model for our reforms if only...)
:)
In the US there are some specific guarantees of record rights. Usually it takes some bad happening for Congress to act. Back in 1988 video rental records were protected after conservatives irate at the leaking of Supreme Court nominee's video rentals. (We really should have gotten to see Justice Thomas's.) The Patriot Act may punch a hole in this. Read this.
Serious protection for medical records has taken many years more. Weird priorities, huh?
With bank data, the bank does have to worry, and worry a lot, about liability for mishaps resulting from misuse of your information. Unlike abstract emotional damages of releasing personal damage, laying a customer open to fraud or other exploitations would get the dollar signs ringing up in a hurry. I know, we'd most all prefer for them to stay hands off in the first place. But there are a lot of other holes in the dike as it is.
On the other hand, Europeans tend to have less protection than Americans in things like free speech. So we get to complain more vocally about the things we don't like.
Chances are that as an individual, you don't really need to resources of a national or international bank. Why take the overhead that goes along with it?
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Our privacy laws (which are fairly new) were modelled after the privacy standards in the EU. And from interviews, letters and everything I've seen, our privacy commissioner is great spokesperson for individual privacy rights in Canada.
Specifically, thanks to a law that he pushed through, this statement in the letter (among others) would be illegal: You do not have the right to opt out of the disclosure of this information...
What were they saying about Soviet Canuckistan?
I can spell. I just can't type.