A considerable scandal broke out in the UK under the previous government over a practice dubbed, “debanking” – which saw various public, but not only, figures cut off from financial services as a way of punishing them for their political views.
That also faced a considerable backlash, but the Labor government that took over earlier in the year doesn’t seem to be willing to give up on the core postulates: it appears to be just trying to go about achieving the same end goal in a more “subtle” manner.
The policy is this: give banks spying powers over everybody, but call that a requirement for banks and financial institutions to “share data that may show indications of potential benefit overpayments.”
In order to achieve the stated goal, the whole population’s bank accounts are likely to be monitored.
So one can think of this as the financial sector version of the “online age verification” push. In that scenario everybody (“the whole population”) loses their right to anonymity for no good reason – but a reason, nonetheless. Opponents say it’s to surveil and control as many people, in as many ways possible, at one time. […]
— Read More: reclaimthenet.org
