Bank Puts a Billion Transaction Records Behind Analytics Site 86
schliz writes "Australia's UBank has put a billion real-world transaction records behind a website that allows users to compare their spending habits with others of the same gender, in the same age/income range, neighborhood and living situation. The 'PeopleLikeU' tool surfaces favorite shops and restaurants surprisingly accurately — because it's based on real customers' transactions, it lists places like good takeout joints that wouldn't normally come to mind when you think of a favorite place to eat. The bank says all data was 'deidentified' and it consulted with privacy authorities."
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Yeah! And fucking iTunes with its Genius feature! I don't WANT to know what songs go well together! Data analytics is bullshit!
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Two words: fraud detection.
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Unfortunately, fraud detection works for shit.
My credit card is shut off an average of at least once per week and I have to call up the bank, sit on hold, go through the whole verification process, go through the listing of my recent purchases, etc. Then go make my purchases again. I can tell the things that are going to trigger it, before it even happens. And nothing ever changes. For example, I buy something on Steam probably twice per week. I have for every week for almost eight years. Yet, inevitably, i
Re:Why should a bank care where and how I spend ?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow, try switching to a not-complete-shit bank / credit provider. My bank has twice over the last 7 years put a temporary hold on my account after I bout something I don't usually buy in a location I don't usually buy things. One other time it probably would have, but I proactively called ahead and told them that I was going there on vacation, so there was no problem.
Also, they call me, not the other way around, and getting it resolved took about 10 minutes. The list of suspect purchases was short and reasonable, and definitely not things that I had a history of buying.
Your bank is crap. Time to vote with your wallet rather than complaining about it on a tech forum.
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I don't like the idea that a bank would decline a transaction just because it's something I wouldn't normally do. E.g., I don't usually travel, but when I do I don't want my debit card put on hold. Not that that has ever happened.
However I think it would be useful if banks could allow geographic restrictions on card usage to be set using online banking. I'd be happy to restrict it to my local area and expand the restriction temporarily as required.
It's not the bank, it's the system (Score:2)
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Agreed. The kid who delivers my pizza has enough information to go on a spending spree on my dime.
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Hmmm... what company are you using? I'd like to ensure I avoid them.
I've had it trigger twice myself. Once correctly, and once a false-positive (but not unexpected - it was a sudden business trip, and I was making purchases in another state that were also out of character - I don't eat out much, and was also buying some gifts while I was there). Both times were essentially correct in flagging improper behavior, and ensuring it was quickly noted and checked upon (as in, within minutes of the purchases, r
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It's Bank of America.
My spending profile can occasionally be erratic and I completely understand flagging really strange series of purchases (try filling up two tanks of gas and immediately going to the store and buying a pair of Nikes). It becomes a nuisance when we're talking about small purchases with places you've done a lot of business with for years. I shouldn't have to stop everything, because I pulled the trigger on today's $4.99 Steam sale. (It also doesn't help that Steam doesn't let you buy multi
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So change banks?
If you put up with such crap then obviously there's no incentive for businesses not to dish it out.
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Calling your bank prior to every $2-$50 Steam purchase is a little absurd. When I bought a home theater in a single day, including a full set of B&W + Velodyne audio system, a call was totally reasonable. I also understand that several small purchases in a short period of time can be indicative of someone testing out a stolen card before going out for a real splurge with it, but not when there is an established history of purchases with it.
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So they can sell your data to other businesses. Not to mention, how are they going to sell you Burger King advertisements when you're reading your online banking statements? (I use Bank of America and in-between actual entries of my statement, it lists things like "10% discount on Burger King!" or "6% discount on Star Bucks!". It's fucking tacky.
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But I don't want to buy iLife like other folks (Score:2)
Privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with 'anonymizing' the data is that while today it might seem safe, tomorrow a separate database showing a different subset of the same data source, or trace information, etc., which when combined can re-pair and de-anonymize it.
Re:Privacy (Score:4, Interesting)
It would have been better if they had taken the opt-in approach like Mint [mint.com] does.
Re:Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
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"De-identifying" is WAY harder than it sounds (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially in small samples, like the size of a neighborhood.
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The "favorite shops and restaurants" narrows down the neighborhood of where groups of persons with similar demographics hang out at a particular time of day.
e.g. If it is for lunch, it would be close to where the work for example.
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I tried that too using Melbourne and Sydney and got similar results, but then realised it was because I was using 3000 and 2000 postcodes which are the CBD areas that probably don't have a lot of residents comparitively. Using my actual suburb which is only medium size and is Tasmania yielded 63 results and that would strike me as fairly plausible.
Results are pretty useless in a lot of areas though because of the obvious bias of using credit cards. For example "Christco Hampers" that are once a year Christm
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AOL Search Data Leak [wikipedia.org]
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Gender and age are already several bits. These listing can be used to pinpoint the location of habitation, work and shopping. Give a few more bits like a regular place to spend week ends, a regular activity, or a specialized shop, the date of a big spending (house, car) and you are not anonymous anymore.
Excuse me (Score:3)
Sure, but what about the actual customers whose data is being exposed? Someone should take nude photos of these bank bureaucrats in the shower, mosaic out their faces and put it in on the web. "Don't worry, we checked with our "privacy authorities.""
You have to wonder who these "privacy authorities" are. The Federal Privacy Commissioner is weak and except for hidden microphones, Australia has weak privacy laws: The worst penalty the Privacy Commissioner can hand out is a letter to an offending company saying "please don't do that." There is no fine or penalty so there is no deterrent.
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/youre-being-more-closely-watched-20120916-260ko.html [theage.com.au]
http://www.privacy.org.au/Resources/POA.html [privacy.org.au]
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Personally, I think that would only count as a sign of bad taste and too much money to spend.
Learning that someone of a specific gender and age group in your neighborhood spent 50$ in Allice's and Bob's Adult Toy Store wouldn't be that much different from "anonymised" nude photos.
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"anonymised" nude photos.
One way to do that would be a whole body Identi Kit with randomly replaced parts.
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if you want to stop someone doing something you have to give them an incentive to stop, and repercussions such as posting of nude photos outweighs collection of random data to the point where the perp reconsiders the value of collecting the data
also, if it was really only you spending $5 at starbucks then fine... not so bad
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eye for an eye doesn't work... it just prolongs
It introduces the concept of balance to some one who never thought of it. Later on one can have ideas like fines that are the value of some tort.
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de-identified (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when it was discovered that the plugins you have installed in your browser, and which browser you were using could almost identify who you were? That's how I felt as I answered questions on the site and saw the number of matches dwindle. I'm not even an AU resident, I just answered truthfully up until it asked for the city and it had narrowed down to ~20000 matches for "people like me."
If you assume that one of those 20000 is me, and that I live in a small town then the number might get even closer to just 1. And once you factor in any other data that might correlate behind the scenes it's not hard to figure out who's who.
Remember the anonymous netflix data that they figured out how to de-anonymize? Same deal. If you're an AU resident, the data is there to uniquely identify you, they just have made a bet with the internet that people won't be able to do so.
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I tried it, living in a relatively small town there were 15 matches "just like me". However judging by the monthly spending patterns these people were actually nothing like me *shrug*.
I do actually have an account at the bank concerned.
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44 here, but the amount spent was insane! 4x what I spend in an average month.
Say (Score:3)
It makes for a pretty good stalking tool. Find me where all the rich young bitches hang out...
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Or the poor hot sluts.
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I switched to cash (Score:5, Interesting)
It's been about 5 or 6 months since I switched to using predominantly cash. Yes, it's a little less convenient in some contexts (though sit-down restaurants are faster, just leaving money on the table instead of waiting for a receipt to sign), but I simply do not want to be 100% tracked like this.
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It's better for everyone to tip in cash anyway.
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It's better only for the server, and it's only better because it helps them avoid taxes. In fact, that's worse for everyone in the country who is not the server.
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It's better only for the server, and it's only better because it helps them avoid taxes.
You're complaining about tipping a server cash because they MIGHT not pay taxes on it? What a nice leap of logic, cash == avoiding taxes. Looks like the media is winning. What next, if you don't i
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Meanwhile heard in the secret und
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Those are many good reasons to *pay* in cash. You specified *tip*, and the only reason specific to tipping that I can think of is tax avoidance.
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Those are many good reasons to *pay* in cash. You specified *tip*
I did not specify tip. You are suffering from not paying attention, here's a hint: I'm not the one you initially replied to. You are now aware you're on a forum visited by multiple individuals, or are we?
and the only reason specific to tipping that I can think of is tax avoidance.
Here is another one, convenience. If I paid in cash, why would I tip with a card? Just curious, is that how you do it in the bay area now? Inquiring minds...
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Sorry, *Fjandr* specified tip.
I think you're right that paying in cash is usually the best option, if for nothing else than relieving the business of the credit card fee. But I also think that "tipping in cash" implies tipping in cash on top of a credit card payment, usually for tax avoidance, and that's what bothers me.
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I think you're right that paying in cash is usually the best option, if for nothing else than relieving the business of the credit card fee.
I'd be surprised if it hasn't been factored into the cost of doing business. Since you have a great interest in taxes why are you paying with cash at all? After all, shouldn't the employer be the focus of taxes instead of the people who actually serve you (and it)? Why just tips? Were you waiting tables while you went to school and forced to itemize everything while someone else didn't and now you have this traumatic past experience looming over you? Are you at all familiar with Steve Buscemi's Character in
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In the USA, food service industry employees are taxed based on a minimum of 8% of their gross sales receipts. That increases if their declared tips exceed that amount, but does not decrease below that under any circumstances.
Additionally, credit card tips are used by many employers as a method of controlling staff. There are also a number of common schemes wherein employees don't receive credit card tips at all. These are many, varied, and the descriptions of them are far more detailed than I'm willing to i
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Yeah... you also missed the part where tipping in cash sucks if you are NOT the server but are also due a percentage of the tips.
I worked as a busboy at a restaurant and I was owed a share of the tips. The 'going' rate for recording tips was 50% of what was received. I was supposed to get a 10% cut of the original tip. So let me tell you that it was really annoying to track just how much the servers were cutting out of my pay when cash was exchanged.
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Yeah... you also missed the part where tipping in cash sucks if you are NOT the server but are also due a percentage of the tips.
That has nothing to do with the customer and everything to do with the people you work with. The post I replied to made a broad claim saying that the only reason for tipping cash is tax evasion. My understanding is the wait staff are to tip the people who prep the tables, quicker turn around time means more people served, meaning more money (in theory with that system). If you cheat the people who support you don't expect stellar service, seems counter productive.
Do you also believe
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> It's been about 5 or 6 months since I switched to using predominantly cash.
> [...] I simply do not want to be 100% tracked like this.
Unfortunately, bills can also be tracked.
There's a different serial numbers on each banknote, doesn't matter if you use Euro or US bills.
Given the current privacy situation in our world, in pretty much all countries it's pretty safe to say these are being tracked wherever possible.
So, while you may not be 100% tracked, it's still happening.
Well, you should be pretty easy to track. We'll just look for the house, car, dog and aquarium covered in tin foil.
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Business Privacy (Score:2)
I tried it. (Score:4, Funny)
According to the site I should be spending $1350 a month more on beer to be keeping up with the neighbors.
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I hope you enjoy alcoholism. Good luck with that. ;). That's a lot of beer.
Not in Australia.
A carton of beer is 24 x 330 to 375 ml bottles.
A carton of cheap beer is A$35. You want decent beer its A$50-60. You want nice beer, well just bend over and take it (A$70+).
Thats for drinking at home, drinking whilst out gets better. For a pint (600ml for arguments sake, this varies by state) of beer you're looking at between $7 and $12. A 330 ml bottle is about the same. A shot of liquor is A$12.
So someone who goes out a few times a week and has a total of 12 pints* per week @A
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Spookily enough though, the pub I was in before I came in and surfed
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I would definitely be considered a lightweight in Australia, then! By those measures I am saving about $1300 a month ;)
You can buy an 18 pack (12 oz, ~350ml cans or bottles) of something cheap like Coors light for ~$15 here. A good 6-pack of 12oz bottles of German beer would run you about $10. But you can go out and sometimes get 2 for 1 beers for $4 here. If you know the bartender really well it gets even cheaper. ;)
Interesting *whose* privacy they're violating... (Score:1)
I'm a uBank customer, got a bit annoyed about them publishing my data like this, "disaggregated" or not.
Then I remembered that uBank only do mortgages, savings accounts, and term deposits (I have the latter), nothing with a credit or debit card attached that would provide the kind of data they're bragging about. Put simply, it's not my data. From the FAQ, emphasis and clicky links mine:
"PeopleLikeU insights are a combination of census data, consumer spend information sourced from Quantium's Market Bluepri [quantium.com.au]
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In the U.S. As Well (Score:2)
How can it be anonymous (Score:1)
Sure, they'll wipe out the same and address, but if you can associate that "random person X" bought pizza at [location X] regularly, gets gas/petrol as [station x], etc etc you're going to have a pretty good finger on where that person lives or works. If you associate purchases to a weekend you'll more likely have a home location.
Now add in that person X goes to a female-only gym, and you've got gender.
Tie in times of purchases and you've got a regular schedule. Even if you don't know the person's name yet,