Why Can’t Banks Protect Our Data?
Our data is on the loose.
So, I was with my friend at the nationalized bank. She came with her father, a senior citizen and retired government employee. If you are a retired government employee, you usually get a pension. (This has been changed since a few years ago, but I don’t know when or what the new rules and guidelines are.)
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But that’s not the point. Every year, around November, retired government employees need to visit the bank where they have their pension account and submit/sign a Life Certificate. This is a mandatory thing. Basically, there is a book where all the pension holders’ account numbers and some other details are listed. The person needs to add their mobile number, PAN card number, Aadhaar card, and sign. Easy peasy.
But that book was left unattended, kept as if nobody cares. Who is coming? Who is checking that book? What if anyone took a photo or video of that book? All the data is right there (pension holders’ account numbers, mobile number, PAN card number, and Aadhaar card, and sign). With one photo, anyone can access this information that a third person is not supposed to see.
But nobody was there to check or monitor who was updating that book. The bank can assign one employee who will assist people who are visiting to update their Life Certificate. If the bank says, We don’t have enough staff, then why aren’t they hiring? Clearly, there are so many who are jobless out there.
So, my question is: Why aren’t banks careful about these basic things?
Note: I didn’t take a real photo of that book back then (that’s illegal, I guess). But the AI generated one for me. So you can imagine how that unattended book looked, with all the crucial account holder details lying there that nobody cares about.
