Page 21 - Seniors Today - January Issue

develops over a period of time, which for the fear of access to the personal critical
inevitably leads to further lowering of
guards.
Let me make an anecdotal point here. As a
retired corporate senior executive used to an
office support system, it was a huge struggle
initially to make the physical rounds of the
banks or the stock markets or mutual funds
or the payment of utility bills or purchase
or what have you. To avoid dying out like
a dodo, and being innately adaptive and
curious, I went digital almost entirely a
few years ago – be it mobile wallets, net
banking, investments purchase or sales,
payments, transfers, purchases, UPI –
anything that we can do from the comfort of
our homes. I access all these platforms not
just from my computer, but increasingly
from my mobile. It will be a matter of time
before I exit computers completely. My UPI
is linked to a specific bank account where
I keep just the minimum amounts to take
care of routine use as also to mitigate risks. I
am just hoping that no one can or will hack
into my bank accounts or digital behaviour.
As against this, my two sons, both of whom
are computer science graduates, never ever
use their mobile phones for net banking
Data is power, data is control – no player will let go of its monetisation or manipulation potential
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #19 | JANUARY 2021
data if the mobiles were to be lost or
stolen. As a result, they prefer to use only
their computers for net banking. Mobile
phones are used only for other platforms
where they can minimise their exposure
relatively. Same principle goes for the use of
messaging platforms like WhatsApp – none
of us have used or will use the payment app
of WhatsApp for reasons of safety.
Continued concern
The point is privacy will continue to be
a concern and under constant threat, no
matter the claims on encryption, limited
use, etc. etc. One of the reasons everyone
claims Signal is safer is because it is an
‘open source’ platform and is not driven
by profit motives. Incidentally, Signal
was founded by Brian Acton, who had
co-founded WhatsApp and later sold it
to Facebook in 2014. It is also given that
the governments will have some kind of
oversight on all these platforms and can
access our data through legal fiats. None of
us as individuals can either avoid or obviate
the access to our data when it comes to a
crunch.
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