Thatâs your opinion and youâve clearly made your mind up that as it doesnât bother you itâs not an issue.
You appear to keep editing the title which suits your agenda as you feel it better suits your understanding, I started the debate, Itâs my choice of the title - Not yours. If you have some sort of moderator responsibility then youâd do well to be more tolerant yourself and stop trying to strong arm the topic around your opinion.
The facts are quite clear, itâs not alleged, itâs fact. Trulayer are harvesting unnecessary information from users accounts and they are acting on behalf of Freetrade.
Personally, I can see at least 6 of those elements are likely for reasons such as auditing or preventing financial crime (such as theft and/or money laundering).
By all means you are free to have concerns about TrueLayer. You are also free to read their privacy policy on their website which clear and concise. If they were such a suspicious company, they would have been gutted out long ago.
They are a UK based company and have to comply with the data protection laws of this country. They provide various services including payment services to websites/apps to make make it easy to deposit money for example.
Ultimately you are not required to use them, of course, that would mean you would need to manually transfer your money yourself, which would not be instant, may take time, and additionally if you had no nominated account with Freetrade, could result in them refusing your payments.
Jimmy if you want to trade with Freetrade you have to use Trulayer. You can put finds in via Apple/Google Pay or by direct deposit, you cannot withdraw without linking a bank account.
I have read their privacy policy and in fact it says they may share the data with third parties and once shared it becomes the responsibility of the third party - They wash their hands.
Ultimately @Stu.F what are you hoping for as an outcome to this topic?
I donât think youâre going to get Freetrade to change their payment processor
if you want to find out why they need that data contact the relevant companies
if you wonât use freetrade while they use TrueLayer then find another broker
I do think itâs alleged, you donât know that TrueLayer are retaining your data. They may use it as a processor rather than storage. They are very different in regulation. (for reference I work in data tech).
Also language like âthey wash their hands of itâ is quite antagonistic. Its pretty standard when partnering to do due dilielgence and then protect your own entity in the Ts and Cs.
In the context of the topic, and not limited to the quote.
When a Freetradeâs customer uses Truelayer to transfer money to and from her/his account, Freetrade is a third party and itâs ok, required even, for Truelayer to share that data with the third parties, ie Freetrade and the bank.
It would be a concern if the data were to be shared with other third parties not directly involved with the specific transaction.
Even HMRC can be considered a third party.
Some permissions do seem odd at first glance.
I donât know how to say this any better so beware of semantics with allegations and statements of fact. Better to be smart and cautious I believe
Mike I wanted to see if others had encountered the issue and what the general consensus was.
Outcome - Well Iâm a bit stuck at the moment, I wonât be using Freetrade to buy anything else but equally I cannot withdraw. Itâs not until you try to add a bank account that youâre made aware of the demands made on your data.
Turelayer have now referred it to their compliance department so at least now I am hopefully getting closer to understanding why they might want that level of data access. They intimate it is Freetrade taking the data, weâll have to see.
I think this option is already there. You just need to scroll to bottom of the list of banks and there will be a link âManual Transferâ. When you click on it, a FT screen would appear with the FTâs Bank Account details and your unique Reference number. You can then use this information to transfer from your own bankâs app or website. Usually, your money should appear in your account instantly.
You donât have to be hiding something to be concerned about privacy. Maybe they werenât expressed in the best way and it came across as confrontational, but the OP had some legitimate concerns. The fact that Truelayerâs compliance team is looking into it shows that they consider his questions worthy of investigation.
My bank knows about my âsavings goalsâ because they manage my savings.
I have an account with separate areas for savings which are organised as goals. You can automate savings, for example by scraping the account or by rounding up or regular transfers.
I have nothing to hide but equally if they donât need to know thereâs no need to tell them. Simple as that.
a possible (benevolent) way to look at savings goals info request: by having access to this info they may be able to send reminders and make suggestions to help the customer stay on track. It may be the case with Truelayer IDK
4 personal notes on the nothing to hide fallacy, generally speaking:
nothing to declare
the right for privacy
the right to decide which info to share with, to what extent, when⊠(implied risk of
being perceived as manipulative behaviourâŠ)
the right to ask doesnât imply the right to obtain an answer
A good guideline in security is to allow permission for the minimum to do the required tasks, and no more.
Their stated aim is to take authorised payments and possibly check on the status of that payment.
They have no business sending customers suggestions on how to stay on track or anything else really, because that has nothing to do with what they said they wanted to do.
The flip side of this is that permissions are often asked for far in excess of what is needed because it makes the life easier for the developer. This is very typical in app development for example, and itâs become normalised for people to accept very dangerous options without thinking⊠An example is that most free apps that use advertising need permissions to access files on the device, internet access, your identity, etc. And people are so used to just giving these permissions away, that they no longer realise that these permissions allow a malicious app to do pretty much anything it likes on the phone.
Iâm willing to believe that this was probably just an oversight or poor decision somewhere. Maybe when they were integrating Truelayer, they just chose all the permissions available because they might be useful in the future. But it is much better to only ask for the specific things they actually need, and itâs right to push for that. If all those things are listed out as separate permissions, itâs presumably possible for them to get a smaller set of permissions with no impact on the required functionality of sending a payment.
Itâs good that this question is being asked, even if the way it was done ruffled some feathers.
Thanks for sharing Adam. It seems there are still some things in your list that are unnecessary ânice to havesâ.
Interestingly I tested the process with another account I have with a different bank and it hasnât alerted me of any such intrusion in to my data privacy.
Personally I couldnât care less what data a company holds about me. It doesnât affect me day to day, so it never comes into consciousness.
As someone who has family in the government security services on both sides of the pond, youâd be surprised what info the governments have in everyoneâs individual âfileâ . Info that makes this thread so mundane its ridiculous. Sadly I canât divulge much more, as having signed the Official Secrets Act many moons ago in my youth, I donât wish to create ripples for myself and family members.
Iâm more interested in why yet again, we have another negative thread about FT, posted by someone with their very first post. Methinks the opposition are very worried about FTâs obvious success at their expense.
It does affect you though and you donât even realise. Thatâs the issue. Everything you see on the internet, all recommendations, all prices are created by accumulating knowledge about you as a person based on your data.
what you hiding that youâre ashamed of? Why are you telling your bank about your saving goals?
