Snippings

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That’s because the barrel of privacy invasion has no bottom. The rallying cry for privacy should begin with the strangely heartening fact that it can always get worse. Even now there’s something yet to lose, something often worth fiercely defending.

From A World Without Privacy Will Revive the Masquerade – The Atlantic:

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The Trump administration has bought access to a commercial database that maps the movements of millions of cellphones in America and is using it for immigration and border enforcement, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The location data is drawn from ordinary cellphone apps, including those for games, weather and e-commerce, for which the user has granted permission to log the phone’s location.

The Department of Homeland Security has used the information to detect undocumented immigrants and others who may be entering the U.S. unlawfully, according to these people and documents.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of DHS, has used the data to help identify immigrants who were later arrested, these people said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, another agency under DHS, uses the information to look for cellphone activity in unusual places, such as remote stretches of desert that straddle the Mexican border, the people said.

From Federal Agencies Use Cellphone Location Data for Immigration Enforcement – WSJ:

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The amount paid by consumers to take cash out of ATMs rose by £29m to £104m last year as many free machines were withdrawn or converted to charge fees, new figures obtained by consumer group Which? revealed.

In contrast, a widespread reduction of cash points across Britain has saved banks £120m since January 2018, according to research from Link, which runs the UK’s largest cashpoint network.

From Consumers pay big price after free cash machines close | Financial Times:

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Mr Shaw added that poorer communities have been hit hardest by these changes, with those most reliant on cash and who can least afford to pay for withdrawals faced with charges of up to £2. Fee-charging machines now comprise a quarter of the entire network of 60,291 machines.

From Consumers pay big price after free cash machines close | Financial Times:

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Barclays Bank, HSBC, First Direct, Virgin, Clydesdale and Tesco Bank, which rely on Travelex for foreign exchange services, have confirmed that they are still unable to offer online exchange services or process orders for foreign currency.

The news comes after Travelex, which employs 9,000 people in 70 countries, said on Friday that it had begun to restore some IT services to some of its outlets in the UK, as part of a phased programme to restore services worldwide.

From High-street banks face disruption three weeks after Travelex hack:

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Travelex websites in 21 countries were out of action yesterday, displaying messages alerting customers to a “virus” attack that had disrupted its foreign exchange services. Only its websites in South Africa and Brazil have not been affected.

The company faced demands for a $6m ransom to decrypt its computers after hackers infiltrated its computer network in the early hours of New Year’s Day. Travelex has not disclosed whether it has paid the ransom.

From High-street banks face disruption three weeks after Travelex hack:

 

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Travelex left critical security weaknesses in the Pulse Secure virtual private network (VPN) servers it uses to provide staff with remote internet access to its central computers unpatched – leaving the company’s networks vulnerable to attacks by criminals for eight months.

From High-street banks face disruption three weeks after Travelex hack:

 

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The group will present the proposal to the government next week, its leader A, told reporters.

While Japan is unlikely to issue a digital currency any time soon due to technical and legal hurdles, the move underscores growing pressure Tokyo is feeling in keeping pace with advances China has made toward issuing a digital yuan.

 

Akira Amari, former Japanese economy minister and a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) heavyweight: “We live in a stable world led by dollar settlement. How should we respond if such a foundation collapses and if (China’s move) gives rise to a struggle for currency supremacy?” (February 2020).

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“Japan should work in close coordination with the United States,” he said. “As part of such efforts, we should ask the United States to set (digital currency) on G7 agenda as chair.”

From Japan lawmakers push government for G7 talks on digital yen – Reuters:

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Laurent Nizri is a very impressive guy. He has built the Paris Fintech Forum into a formidable event where the content, networking and all-important serendipities are unique and unmissable. I thought that the 2019 event was a triumph and I was sceptical whether he could keep the momentum going this year, but I have to report that he succeeded on every front.

I take my hat off to him.

He is also a very persuasive guy, which is how come I ended up opening and closing the event on the main stage as well as doing a couple of fireside chats and chairing the identity session. Phew.

The opening discussion had Laurent, my good friend Brett King and me discussing what had really changed in the fintech world since Laurent’s first forum. This was a discussion about challenger banks vs. niche banks, big finance vs. big tech and new technologies vs. old regulators. With people with such wide and informed perspectives on stage, the discussion was, frankly, pretty illuminating. I was not the only person to think this went well! Fintech Istanbul, for example, said that “the highlight of the event was beyond any doubt the opening discussion: Dave Birch and Brett King filled the main conference room end to end and assessed FinTech’s position in financial services”.

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The essence of this discussion was that one of the main changes of the previous five years was the shift from the fintech rallying cry of overthrowing the incumbents to the new reality of working with the incumbents and, coming so soon after the acquisition of Plaid by Visa and Honey by PayPal, finding the right incumbents to sell to!

One of the more interesting announcements at the event came from Thales, who announced the launch (with Docuposte) of the French digital identity scheme. I was honoured to be asked to have a fireside chat with the Gemalto CEO Philippe Vallée about this and to hear first hand why the time for population-scale digital identity is here.

  

I also had a very pleasant chat about fraud with Michael Reitblat from Porter. Was hoping to pick up a few tips about fraud, just in case this whole “influencer” thing doesn’t work out, but sadly he wanted to talk about how good they are at detecting and avoiding fraud.

The second day opened with a relaxed “breakfast chat” (complete with coffee and croissants on stage) with Michael Kent (the respected co-founder of Azimo), Paul Taylor (the impressive CEO of Thought Machine) and Cyril Chiche (who started the French payment app Lydia). There was no agenda, the idea was simply for the delegates to see an interesting discussion between industry leaders and it was a very enjoyable start to the day.

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In many ways, the final panel on the main stage was the most interesting. Looking to the future, it is clear that artificial intelligence (AI) will play a major role in shaping the financial services industry as a whole as well as providing some wholly new opportunities for fintech. I was joined onstage by Brett again, along with my good friend Clara Durodie (whose excellent new book on the topic “Decoding AI in Financial Services” was just published) and the super smart Nicolas Meric, CEO of AI company DreamQuark.

One the discussion got underway, it went in some interesting directions. This is why I like having onstage discussions with actual experts but no PR script. It was fascinating for me to listen to what they had to say and I’m think I’m right in saying that the audience were to.

The discussion was very wide-ranging and confirmed some of my suspicions about the magnitude of AI-related change that is coming. One point that stuck with me, building on Brett’s vision from his book “Augmented: Life in the Smart Lane”, is that I may have been too gloomy about the impact on employment. The panelists left us with an optimistic view of a near future in which AI supports and enhances people in delivering new and better financial services to the mass market.

In summary: Paris Fintech Forum was an excellent event and is now a fixture in my calendar. Laurent is taking a well-deserved break from it next year, but I look forward to see you all there when he brings it back better than ever.

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Getting a credit or debit card often requires a form of ID, a utility or another bill

From Some Businesses Are Going Cashless, But Cities Are Pushing Back : NPR:

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I don’t think we have a Minister for the Internet (do we?) so it falls under the capable purview of Baroness Morgan of Cotes. The Baroness has introduced a new bill into the House of Lords

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his proposed new law that would pave the way for a statutory duty of care requiring Facebook, YouTube and other tech firms to do more to protect children from online harms.

From Duty of care bill to be introduced in the Lords amid fears the Government’s plans could be delayed for a year:

 

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In 2018, Facebook made 16.8 million reports of child sexual exploitation and abuse content to the NCMEC.
The National Crime Agency said this had led to more than 2,500 arrests and 3,000 children made safe.

From NSPCC urges Facebook to stop encryption plans – BBC News:

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NCMEC [the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children],

 

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But, the NCMEC estimates, if Facebook implements end-to-end encryption, it could mean 70% of these vital reports are lost.

 

From NSPCC urges Facebook to stop encryption plans – BBC News:

 

 

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But what actually could be done? Suppose a teenager is approached “out of the blue” on Facebook by an older person — let’s say, the Scottish Finance Minister, for example — what difference would it make whether the messages are encrypted or not? Is Facebook really going to read every message sent to someone under 18 (or 21, or 13 or whatever) and feed these messages into an AI that is going to try to work out whether messages are a) ok, b) creepy but perfectly legal or c) against the law?

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Texas Capital Bank, has launched Bask Bank, a digital savings account that earns American Airlines AAdvantage miles instead of interest.

From Texas Capital launches digital savings bank that pays air miles ins…:

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