One of my banks is threatening to freeze my account unless I disclose my residential address where I sleep at night. Then their privacy policy says they can share my account info around, vaguely to credit bureaus (who I have no contract with and who will share the data further, or leak it in a breach). This bank claims “regulations require…” No, they do not. The regs say they must collect residential address OR business address, or if those are not available an address to a family member. So the bank is bullshitting.

At the same time, another bank says in so many words: sorry to inform you we were breached. Cyber criminals have all your sensitive info. We take privacy and security seriously. We offer you a credit monitoring subscription to compensate you. If you are interested, you can share your sensitive info with that monitoring org, who in turn will share the info with their subcontractors. And anonymous access is blocked so you must also share your IP address.

In light of these two shitty¹ banks, I would like to give a big fuck you to those who say:

• “You don’t want your bank to know where you live? What are you hiding? What kind of dodgy shit are you into?”
• Bruce Schneiere: “cryptocurrency is a problem looking for a solution”
• “You expect your bank to let you access your account from Tor? Why don’t you trust your bank with your IP address? Why don’t you want your ISP to know where you bank? What kind of dodgy shit are you into?”
• “Cash is for tax evaders. You have no legitimate cause to demand cash payment or to pay in cash.”
• “A cashless society protects us from criminals & money launderers”

¹ I don’t mean to imply these to banks are exceptionally shitty. They are just like any bank. All banks, credit unions, etc, are shitty in the same way.