Facebook Wants Your Bank Account!!!

Posted on August 8, 2018 by jilldennison under Social commentary

Facebook, the company that allowed Russia to obtain data on some 87 million users in order to target and manipulate voters for the 2016 election has hatched a new scheme. You’re gonna love this one, folks! Facebook is planning to expand its popular ‘Messenger’ program so that you can access your bank through Messenger and do such things as check your account balance, transfer money, pay bills, etc.

Let it sink in for just a minute …

The headline in the Wall Street Journal summed it up best:

Facebook to Banks: Give Us Your Data, We’ll Give You Our Users

You’ll remember that on July 26^th, Facebook stock plummeted, losing approximately 20% of its value and costing the company $120 billion. Well, seems they needed to come up with something new and innovative to get things rolling again, so here we are. They are negotiating with a number of large financial institutions, including JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup and U.S. Bancorp.

The social media network wants access to card transactions and checking account balances along with information about where its users shop. And what would the banks receive in return? Access to Facebook user’s information. Wow … I don’t know about you, but I find that concept doubly frightening! I use Facebook and use Messenger frequently … multiple times a day. If this deal goes through, I will no longer use either!

Considering that Facebook is still slogging through numerous lawsuits and trying to salvage their reputation as a result of the Cambridge Analytica, facing lawsuits in both the U.S. and UK, and is being investigated by a number of agencies, one might think they would ‘lay low’ and not stir further controversy, yes? Remember the piece I wrote back in April, titled Facebook RX, about their plans to link your medical records, such as age, prescriptions and number of hospital visits, to your Facebook user data? That plan was shelved, for the same reasons I find this new one objectionable: Facebook has proven more than once that they cannot guarantee the privacy of our data.

The Cambridge Analytica breach was not the first time that Facebook was in trouble over data misuse. In 2011, Facebook settled with the Federal Trade Commission over charges that it didn’t keep its privacy promise to users by allowing private information to be made public without warning. As a result, Facebook had to agree to undergo an independent privacy evaluation every other year for the next 20 years.

The new plan would give Facebook data such as where you shop, what you spend your money on, etc. While Facebook claims they have no intention of using this information for targeted advertising or anything nefarious … then why would they even want the data?

We are already being tracked, as I wrote in my post, Big Brother IS Watching, last August. Our cell phones, if GPS is turned on, report our every movement. Take a minute to go back and read that post again, if you will. Since I wrote that piece, checked to see exactly how much Google knew about my activities, I have disabled my GPS and only turn it on when I travel into unfamiliar territory.

Technological advances have value, but only if used for the right purposes and confined to the right people. In this day and age, particularly after the Cambridge Analytica breach, I find that my friend Herb’s motto: Trust No One, is quite apt. At the very least, I do not trust Facebook. While the intent may not be evil, I can imagine far too many scenarios where our personal and financial information gets into the wrong hands and we suffer the consequences.

My best advice to you is share nothing with Facebook. I do not even have a profile on Facebook, beyond very basic information, and they absolutely will not be getting my banking information, nor credit card information! And my bank will not be learning my Facebook password, either!

Facebook is struggling now, and they say their goal is to keep people on Messenger for longer periods of time, as they access their bank accounts there, rather than by phone or bank app. They created their own situation, made their own bed, so to speak, and they will need to find ways to earn the confidence and trust of their users again. Asking for our bank information and then asking our bank for our financial information is not the way to regain our trust!

Be ever vigilant, folks. Guard your personal and financial information as if your life depended on it, for perhaps it does. Bear in mind that your bank, Facebook, Twitter and even WordPress are not your friends, but are businesses, corporations, seeking to make money and in whatever way they can.

Facebook RX

Posted on April 7, 2018 by jilldennison under Social commentary

Okay, folks … I want you to be sure that you are sitting down for this one. Sitting? Good. Now, take your left hand and firmly cup your jaw so that it cannot fall to the floor. Ready?

Facebook had plans to take health records – such as a patient’s age, prescriptions and number of hospital visits – and link it to their Facebook data. Facebook had already approached hospitals and health organizations with the idea, touting that it could (somehow?) help improve patient care. “For example, the Facebook data might reveal that a patient did not have many friends or did not receive many messages, so might need a nurse to visit them at home. It might also reveal that a patient did not speak English as their first language, which would help the hospital plan the person’s care.” Pardon, but wouldn’t the hospital already be aware that the patient does not speak English???

EXCUSE ME?!?!?!! Has Mark Zuckerberg and his gang never heard of a little thing we have here called HIPAA? Back in the day (1996 and after) “bean-counter Jill” was responsible for paying all the company employees medical premiums. I did not have access to their medical records, but simply because I paid their premiums, by law I had to take some 30 hours of HIPAA training so that I would understand patient privacy laws! I have since forgotten more than I knew, but having a daughter who is an RN, one thing I do know, and that is that patient information is to be strictly guarded, and even a family member may not gain access to it without the express, written consent of the patient. But Facebook, the company who allowed the data from some 87 million users to be breached and harvested, might have gained access to our medical information???

Cathleen Gates, from the American College of Cardiology, said it had been “engaged in discussions with Facebook” concerning the use of anonymized data to further scientific research. Facebook said the work had “not progressed past the planning phase” and said it had “not received, shared or analysed anyone’s data”.

The plan has been put on hold indefinitely, given that Facebook is currently under intense fire for its ties to Cambridge Analytica and the date breaches that occurred during the 2016 election. Now, I ask you, if Facebook couldn’t even protect our ‘name, rank & serial number’, do you really want them to know about your latest gall bladder surgery, miscarriage or toenail fungus medication?

Facebook says the project is on ‘hiatus’ while they focus on their latest trials and tribulations, but the mere fact that this project was even conceived of and apparently taken seriously by at least some hospitals and medical organizations, that medical facilities were considering contributing our private data, is highly disturbing! More than once in the past year, I have considered quitting Facebook for a myriad of reasons, but have always stopped short, for it is the best means I have for staying in touch with friends, nieces and nephews who live hundreds of miles away. But at this latest, at the very thought that Facebook might have attempted such an invasion of our privacy, I am seriously re-considering.

One question I have … Facebook says it asked the hospitals to share only “anonymized” data, but they would then match it to specific users. Obviously, if they would be able to match it to a specific user, it wasn’t to be anonymized after all. Facebook says the data would have been used only for research conducted by the medical community. Mmm hmmm. 🙄 And I’ve got a great little bridge for sale in Brooklyn, too.

Trust, folks, is a funny thing. It can take years and years of hard work, whether we are talking about a relationship between two people, or between a business and its customers, to build the walls of trust. And with just one breach, a single lie, the walls can come crumbling down. Facebook has lost the public trust, and at best, it may take them a decade or better to re-build it, if it can even be rebuilt. For me, the medical community lost my trust years ago, but with HIPAA, I at least felt my personal/medical information was secure. Apparently, once again, I was wrong.

Note to Readers: Just as I finished this post and was about to schedule it for this morning, I realized that it would be Saturday morning. I haven’t the energy to write another tonight, so we will have Saturday Surprise on Sunday this week!

Cambridge Analytica And John Bolton Are Major News Items With A Connection/ Legal Awareness

Posted on March 24, 2018 by jilldennison under Global Issues, Political commentary, Re-blogs, Social commentary

Just when you thought you had heard it all, when you thought the tangled web of the 2016 presidential election couldn’t possibly have any new strands, along comes a whole new set of strands with more knots than a sailor’s rope. I have had neither the time nor the energy to delve into all the dirty dealings of Cambridge Analytica, but our friend Gronda has done an excellent job of it, so I am sharing her very informative post with you. We all need to be aware of the many ways in which we were manipulated two years ago, for the results are proving disastrous. Thank you, Gronda, for this excellent and very informative post!

Gronda Morin

Image result for photos of chris wylie CHRISTOPHER WYLIE

It is now a fact that the Cambridge Analytica executives which included the likes of Steve Bannon, Rebekah Mercer and Alexander Nix were warned in 2014 that if they continued to get involved with US politics while maintaining their current practices, that they would be acting against US elections’ laws. The irony is that it was the republican President Donald Trump’s friend and ally, Rudy Giuliani who provided them with this information via his law firm.

Guess what else happened in 2014? The newly hired president’s National Security Adviser John Bolton used CA’s services in 2014 to effectively target potential voters in a marketing campaign for the elections of Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Tom Tillis of North Carolina in their bids to become US Senator. Both were victorious.

GOP WHO HAVE HIRED CA FOR ELECTION CAMPAIGNS