How safe is your financial data online?

Everyone uses social media these days. It’s almost inescapable, really. It’s by far the most convenient way to keep track of and message all your friends, past and present. However, using such widely public platforms also means being very careful with your information. All social media account holders should know not to post any financial information for other people to see. This also goes for one’s password. However, to some extent, there is only so much an account holder can do. Such platforms could allow people to access your information without your consent. This could also include your financial data. These days, a sizable proportion of banks have set up customer service on such platforms. Linking your financial or banking accounts with your social media could be very worrying. Such communication could mean accidentally relaying information others could use nefariously. One may also end up communicating with scam pages that will take advantage of you.

So, how safe is your financial information on such sites?

Facebook’s mission, to push for financial data

Facebook has been really pushing big banks to get on their platform, something that could be very beneficial for them. To be more accurate, they have been almost courting them.

They have been asking these institutions to allow financial data to be shared on their platform. This could include card transactions, balances on checking accounts, etc.

This sort of development could understandably be quite worrying for some people.

The possible risks for financial data

As many people already know, Facebook’s main line of business is in information. It wants to be able to gather as much data on their users as possible and use for their own purposes. This could also include financial data. They can sell this sort of data to advertisers, who will pay top dollar to know how exactly people are behaving. They can then, through the power internet, individually customise adverts to each person according to their data. While the ultimate use of this information is not all that nefarious, it is still a worrying practice. Such information, especially financial data, could get into the hands of people who will take more direct advantage of it.

Issues in the past

All of this is not necessarily speculation. This may sound like some sort of conspiracy theory, but it is based on real-life revelations. A rather famous scandal occurred in 2018, with relation to Cambridge Analytica. The company had information on 87 million Facebook users. These individuals experienced a data breach, unfortunately. What followed was Facebook having to testify before court on their practices as a company. If they rather openly had so much information on so many individuals, who know how much else they could have? So, it is not so hard to imagine your financial data being compromised.

Being careful with messaging apps

Any chat app for financial communication for banks could potentially be through a third-party provider. This is a large part of the issue. How can one trust such third-party providers with your financial data? The bank themselves may be careful and responsible, but what about these outside companies?

Conclusions

Now you know the essence of the problem with having your financial data linked to your social media accounts. Facebook seems quite open to gathering people’s information and selling it. What’s more, these prospective banking apps are quite worrying. It is hard to know how trustworthy they are, with third-party providers. What’s more, one may accidentally use scam versions of such apps without realizing it.

However, for now, no one will be forcing users to use such services. It is, indeed, quite tempting though. The ease and convenience through which you could directly contact banking for such problems makes them very attractive. But people can still direct their such issues towards banks. They can contact banks through chat apps on their site, call them, or numerous other options.

Ultimately, this sort of thing is up to the discretion of every bank account holder. If they are not so secure about Facebook being careful with their financial data, it’s best they avoid using such services. If they are more trusting and want the convenience of such services, they can go for it. This especially goes for people holding accounts with a low balance. Time will tell, at the end of the day.