Comment on Do any ATMs in Belgium support balance inquiries?

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ciferecaNinjo@fedia.io ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Banks are gradually removing features from their websites in a progression toward complete elimination of the website (some banks have already taken that step & impose an app). 1-factor authentication is illegal in Belgium. So for web access banks typically hand out devices for 2FA. Some banks avoid that cost by imposing a smartphone app in lieu of a card reader or RSA token (BYO smartphone).

There are many problems with bank apps in Belgium:

  1. You must buy smartphone hardware (the apps detect when they are executed inside a virtual machine & deny service)
  2. You must patronize a surveillance capitalist (create a Google or Apple account)
    2.1. You must subscribe to mobile phone service in order to satisfy Google’s unreasonable demand for a mobile phone number
    2.2. You must trust Google with your mobile phone number
    2.3. When Google records your place of banking, you must trust Google not to share that info (with debt collectors, for example)
  3. All bank apps in Belgium are closed-source, so you must trust the apps not to carry spyware and to work in your interests
  4. You must chronically upgrade your hardware every few years because the bank apps are upgraded with reckless disregard to the lockstep-coupling of hardware to software on all phone platforms that are supported by Belgian banks. You cannot run a VM to prevent irresponsible electronic waste (see point 1)
  5. The bank’s privacy policies are written to allow your realtime location to be tracked via the app.

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