Enterprise IT, News - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 11:42 - 6 Comments

CBA’s Kaching app raises privacy concerns

news One of Australia’s leading privacy advocates has raised concerns about the Commonwealth Bank’s new mobile, social and near field communications payments application, highlighting the fact that it has the potential to eliminate much of the anonymity offered by paying for goods and services through cash.

The app, unveiled yesterday for Apple iPhones and coming soon to the Android platform, allows customers to make payments from their mobile phone to anyone with an email address, phone number or Facebook friendship, as well as to merchants via the near field communications standard. It represents the latest in a wave of such apps, with similar platforms including ANZ Bank’s goMoney system and the Pollenizer-backed Pygg, which focuses on Twitter payments.

However, speaking via email yesterday, Australian Privacy Foundation chair Roger Clarke pointed out that many people didn’t necessarily want a complete payments trail collected by their financial institutions. “Examples of such people,” Clarke said, referring to a paper he wrote as early as 1999 on the issue, “include VIPs, celebrities, notorieties, different-thinkers, victims of domestic violence, people in sensitive occupations such as prison management and psychiatric health care, protected witnesses, and undercover law enforcement and security operatives”.

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