In the race to comply with the LGPD (Brazilian General Data Protection Law), banks must lead the way. In Brazil, there are increasingly more banking options – both digital and physical – gaining ground. Given their widespread use by a large part of the population, the utmost care must be taken to protect privacy in a context where valuable information is handled.
In general, the future of privacy for organizations, including banks, must be approached with greater seriousness and awareness, reflected in investments focused on their digital and physical infrastructure. First, it's necessary to understand what information they collect.
What information do banks collect from customers?
Banks possess a wealth of user information, including personal, financial, and transaction details.
At the time of registration, they need to know your full name, your age – to verify if you are of legal age or at least 16 years old, this varies according to the bank's policy – address, CPF (Brazilian tax identification number), and ways to contact you, such as phone number or email.
They also need to know your financial situation in order to offer a credit limit that matches your economic circumstances, among other issues that can only be decided with information from other bank accounts. Furthermore, when using the app, they are aware of your transactions, deposits, withdrawals, and bill payments, including invoices.
In conclusion, they may also request personal information to ensure greater security and protection against scams and fraud, such as account verification and/or monitoring of suspicious transactions.
In relation to the LGPD (Brazilian General Data Protection Law), financial institutions that misuse customer data are subject to a fine that can reach up to 2% of their total revenue. This percentage may seem low to some, but it is a very high amount. To avoid negative impacts, banks must comply with the LGPD.
What does the future of banking look like in terms of privacy?
Already aware of the issue of privacy, Brazilian banks are, as a result, investing more in technological measures and practices that ensure greater security in their structures, involving their customers' data.
Technological advancements will be a great ally, even more precise than they already are. Some banks use Artificial Intelligence to detect any suspicious activity that might indicate an attempted scam or something similar.
On the legal side, they operate in compliance with privacy laws, such as the General Data Protection Law in Brazil. Internal policies and procedures are reviewed to ensure they already align with the regulations.
The financial market must comply with the LGPD (Brazilian General Data Protection Law), even to operate fairly with its clients, who need to know if their digital establishment is safe for storing or investing their money.
The trend for the future is that bank customers will have increasing knowledge of the subject and that institutions can play a key role in disseminating best practices for privacy.
Banks: constant targets of hackers
Banks are constant targets of data leakage...or at least attempts to. As mentioned earlier, they possess a wealth of confidential and highly valuable information. With the data compromised, cybercriminals exploit the vulnerability to commit crimes such as extortion, financial fraud, or identity theft.
In short, it's important to invest as much as possible in cybersecurity measures to protect your customers' data and your system. Testing is necessary to measure its effectiveness. Data breaches in banks can occur due to human error, software failures, social engineering, and hacker attacks.
