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Bank violates customers' privacy with 'wanted' list
By Ni Tao |
March 15, 2013, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
IT used to be the exclusive power of prosecutors to issue wanted lists, but now some banks are doing that as well, to hunt down clients suspected of thefts.
A bank clerk in Shangluo City, Shaanxi Province, recently posted the photos of a depositor online after she mistakenly handed out an extra 1,200 yuan (US$193).
Desperate to retrieve the money, she posted the photos and set up a cash reward for anyone providing information that would help identify the depositor.
The bank customer surely merits criticism for not returning the money, but the bigger question is how the teller accessed customers' data including video clips, supposedly confidential and off-limits to staffers at her level, and secure approval to publish them online? And since when are banks allowed to leak customers' information just because some careless teller mishandled her job?
More outrageously, the teller's supervisor defended her in an interview, stressing that the leak had no malicious motives.
Malice may not be intended, but recklessness is evident. The bank isn't sure the "wanted" depositor pocketed the excess. But it went ahead and released the "wanted list," regardless of the risk of being sued for violating personal privacy.
Clearly the concepts of standard legal industrial practice are very loose among the bank management. Its staff, in their eagerness to collect the balance, for which they would be held responsible, had no qualms about compromising the very principle by which good bankers swear - respect for customers' privacy.
The teller, reportedly new to the job, has a merciful employer. She wasn't orderd to repay the 1,200 yuan out of her own pocket.
But depositors probably will not show mercy on a feckless institution that spoiled the trust vested in it by making a mistake graver still than the one it tried to correct.
A bank clerk in Shangluo City, Shaanxi Province, recently posted the photos of a depositor online after she mistakenly handed out an extra 1,200 yuan (US$193).
Desperate to retrieve the money, she posted the photos and set up a cash reward for anyone providing information that would help identify the depositor.
The bank customer surely merits criticism for not returning the money, but the bigger question is how the teller accessed customers' data including video clips, supposedly confidential and off-limits to staffers at her level, and secure approval to publish them online? And since when are banks allowed to leak customers' information just because some careless teller mishandled her job?
More outrageously, the teller's supervisor defended her in an interview, stressing that the leak had no malicious motives.
Malice may not be intended, but recklessness is evident. The bank isn't sure the "wanted" depositor pocketed the excess. But it went ahead and released the "wanted list," regardless of the risk of being sued for violating personal privacy.
Clearly the concepts of standard legal industrial practice are very loose among the bank management. Its staff, in their eagerness to collect the balance, for which they would be held responsible, had no qualms about compromising the very principle by which good bankers swear - respect for customers' privacy.
The teller, reportedly new to the job, has a merciful employer. She wasn't orderd to repay the 1,200 yuan out of her own pocket.
But depositors probably will not show mercy on a feckless institution that spoiled the trust vested in it by making a mistake graver still than the one it tried to correct.
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