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Your Money Is Funding Fossil Fuels Without You Knowing It
(www.wired.com)
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this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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US banking rules are tough to comply with if you don't know your customer. Tor makes that hard.
This is covered by 31 C.F.R. § 103.121, which requires:
That’s it. They don’t need your IP address and they do not need to track your realtime whereabouts. That may sound baffling because banks often demand much more info than that. The Patriot Act tells banks they can collect more information for KYC purposes. This ensures that customers cannot sue their banks for data over-collection. So when the bank says “we need to know where you work, how much you earn, what your profession is, etc, because ‘Patriot Act’…”. They’re being sneaky and misleading. They do not have to collect all that info, but they can, if they want. And they often want excessive amounts of info because it’s profitable. Since there is no GDPR in the US, banks can misrepresent the purpose of data collection. They can say “we collect that info for KYC/Patriot Act” when they actually just want to feed their market research.
Some banks allow Tor logins thus demonstrating that it’s legally compliant.
In practice, the banks are a lot more picky than that, and reject customers without that additional data or with a lot of cash transactions.
It is indeed useful when that rejection gives a built-in way of moving your business to another bank that’s less reckless with excessive data collection.
But it does not always work out that way. I refused to answer a needless intrusive interrogation and it had no effect (which also proves the interrogation was not necessary). The bank likely made a note of my refusal… perhaps to try to use against me. They really want you to believe you’re required to answer those questions. In any case, it obviously makes sense to avoid the banks that show signs of over-collection because it hints that there could be more excessive collections going on with that bank. E.g. when you call the bank, some banks will initiate a spontaneous interrogation unrelated to the reason for your call.
There are countless ethical reasons to do as many transactions in cash as possible. If a bank were to show me the door for doing too many withdrawals, then it would actually be a feature. You don’t want your money in a bank who is protectionist against runs on the bank. It’s better to bank where your money is not trapped.