Privacy often guides my tech choices, I do have a Facebook account for events but I don’t use their apps and I only log in when I’m invited to something. I try to use DDG though it’s almost impossible to avoid google in my language. And so on, but one area I can’t avoid is banks, and I’ve been wondering why they are sneaking past the privacy talks.

I’m Danish and we’re rather digitized. I mean, I have a national ID that can authenticate me anywhere that support it that runs in a mobile app. I use it for things like banking. Anyway, we also have a range of financial apps. Two are particularly interesting in terms of privacy. One of them is called mobilepay, and mainly handles transactions between small shops or when you need to send/request money between friends. As such it knows who my closest friends are more accurately than Facebook ever did, because I never Facebook chatted with people I see every day, I do however go to various events with them where we manage the bill with mobilepay. And since mobile pay isn’t just linked to a contact, but an actual phone number they have that too.

That’s not really the part that worries me though. It’s the way they track my purchases. Mobilepay lets you do electronic receipts, meaning they can read what you buy. It’s voluntary so you could opt out of it, but we have another app called Spir which helps you budget and organise your private economy by accessing your accounts through bank APIs. Spir can also see what you purchase, so even if you’re not opting into it, banks tack everything we buy unless we’re using cash. I’m not sure if this has to do with our national payment-card called Dankortet (kind of a mixed credit/debit card, but not exactly) or it’s just how modern transactions work. However that information is much more accurate than my search history.

I have anxiety, I also recently had a hemorrhoid, I’m fairly certain google might think I have cancer. My bank knows that’s wrong though, because they know I bought hemorrhoid medicine at the pharmacy.