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With many countries already heading towards cashless transactions, we are facing some hard decisions. These decisions will be made whether we ignore them or not, so to have a say it is essential to be active. These are not new issues, but they are quickly approaching. Dominic Frisby at The Guardian is the latest to take up some of the pertinent questions around the move to a cashless society.
Poor people and small businesses rely on cash. A contactless system will likely entrench poverty and pave the way for terrifying levels of surveillance.
Source: Why we should fear a cashless world
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In a World Without Cash, Every Payment You Make Will be Traceable
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Either I'm dead or my watch has stopped.
-- Groucho Marx's last words
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @09:46PM (7 children)
There's less risk. Lose your card? So what, call to get a new one. Have your card stolen? So what, call to get a new one. With cash, if it's lost or stolen then it's gone forever.
It's easier and faster. It's much easier to carry around a single card than a bunch of bills and coins. It's also faster to checkout unless the store bought cheap card readers.
Maybe for you driving to a bank and standing in line is a good use of time, but for me being able to manage my account while dinner is cooking is vastly better than having to take off work to get to the bank during business hours.
I think you should switch to a better bank or credit union.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @10:12PM (2 children)
If you told someone from 50+ years ago that they would be able to do all their banking from home and have a single card to replace all their cash I'm sure they would be amazed and quite interested.
Then tell them that every purchase they make with the card will be tracked and the data analyzed to try and sell them stuff, build psychological profiles and track their physical movements. You will be given directions to the nearest bridge along with a a few helpful suggestions. Oh, also let them know that if someone steals their card they could very possibly steal a lot of their money that won't be reimbursed if its a debit card.
We have normalized insanity in the name of convenience. The genie won't go back in the bottle so we need to keep pushing for privacy laws and massive punishments for corporations that don't protect consumer data.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Saturday July 22 2017, @10:44AM (1 child)
You were obviously not around 50 years ago: that was 1967 - a time when people were indeed aware of the possibilities you describe,
and, indeed duly scared. After all, WW2 was still very much in people's minds, and (in the UK anyway) 1984 was on the 'O' level English
syllabus - if not that exact year then within a few years either side.
Computers as "Electronic brains" were also much in the news.
Privacy laws will, as a whole, be not much more use than anti-drug campaigns - at best they drive it underground. Do you know
what GCHQ are doing? what they could do? What they could do but don't, to avoid suspicion of their abilities? (Tin foil won't help).
Ultimately, I predict that what will kill this is "bit rot" and false positives. Watch what happens to spread sheets after a few years,
databases after 10's of years. Hell, the H/Ds on both Linux and Windows machines seem to leave piles of stray bits all over the
machine room floor! And even if the data is intact, with a high rate of staff turnover and piss poor documentation, the system
will fall to bits fairly quickly (ask you local ex kgb man about his experience).
Entropy may or may not be your friend, but it is a powerful enemy!
Believe me: I have consulted with the Dark Lords, and they said "You are fucked, mate".
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 1) by terryk30 on Saturday July 22 2017, @11:40AM
However: cheap storage, big data, AI?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nuke on Friday July 21 2017, @10:28PM (1 child)
What BS :
It does not need to be all or nothing. I carry around $25 for buying smaller things and a card for larger things. If I got $25 stolen it would be less hassle and value than spending the rest of the day phoning banks and doing paperwork.
My card wallet is much fatter and heavier than the $25 cash. Nevermind, I'm strong enough to manage.
Are you posting from 1950 through a time machine? Have you ever seen told about cash dispensers? There is one right outside my local supermarket - sorry I lied - there is a row of them outside my supermarket , one at each of three filling stations and one outside each of six banks in my typical small UK country town. All are within about 800 yards of each other.
WTF has managing you account got to do with it? I manage my account at home online too, nothing to do with how I pay for things.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Saturday July 22 2017, @02:35PM
You may be unaware that the land of the free, home of the brave is also the land of double-dipping. In addition to inbound and outbound telephone call charges and inbound and outbound SMS charges, people in the US are accustomed to a 3% bank teller charge [mybanktracker.com] or similar to use an ATM [wikipedia.org]. The US doesn't have a reciprocal inter-bank cash dispensing fee. Instead, they fleece the customer.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday July 21 2017, @10:42PM (1 child)
It's not like I carry around some kind of McDuck sized moneybag. If I lose my wallet I lose perhaps a few hundred bucks, which would be annoying but nothing more, it's not money worth dying for. If I lose, or somehow get scammed out of, my CC or bankcard they could in theory clean out my account completely. How is that better? I might get it back or part of it back after some investigation if they somehow find I wasn't at fault. But I might not even know for days, weeks or months that some store I shopped in got skimmed or had some giant databreach. If I drop my wallet I'll know within a day, if someone sticks a knife in my face and wants my wallet I'll know right away. The money in that case will never be the issue - it will be ID cards and such that are a much bigger pain to have to deal with.
Convenience seems to be what they are trying to sell me on. But it really isn't much of convenience. Their benefit is so much greater then mine. I guess I just don't live as busy a life as most people that need to do like everything all the time from anywhere. Plus I already get a benefit from not using cards in the store -- since most other people do the line for manual checkout is a lot shorter these days. Plus I get to interact with a real human, sometimes entertaining -- sometimes not. But otherwise when I cook dinner, I cook dinner - I might do some dishes or so when things are on the stove. Balancing my account has not really crossed my mind, but that is a personal preference I gather. I think I walk past a bank or an ATM almost every day, even when I don't live in the city I can pass by one at least once a week without going out of my way. That is enough for me.
I think I should switch bank to, if only they where not all the same and sucked equally. The only difference between them appears to be the sign in front of the building.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 25 2017, @07:25AM
If you managed your credit card statements every month you'd easily see fraud transactions and be able to report them as such. I don't consider credit cards to be the same as debit card and never carry debit cards. In USA you're limited to $50 of fraudulent transactions (most credit cards companies will eat that $50 for good PR) and it's up to the merchant to prove the transaction was valid, not you.
I track all my finances and tracking card purchases is a lot easier than tracking cash. It was very helpful as a starving student and being close to $0 as well as when making sure I'd have enough to purchase and maintain my first home. There's some piece of mind in not having to remember how much I have in my wallet, but all the stores I shop at have to be driven to so I don't have easy access ATMs I'd always pass while shopping. Being able to get cash at every store would make using cash easier, but then I'd have to start carrying around a debit card which would matter if that was stolen.
Each way has it's pros and cons. As long as both stay possible, I'm fine with that.