An unnamed British bank has admitted to monitoring customers' accounts for suspicious activity in order to identify pimps: for example, daily payments out for contraceptives, multiple anonymous cash deposits, or regular payments to sex advertising websites.

I'm sure we all agree that prostitution is distasteful at the best of times, and the prostitution of trafficked slaves is a revolting crime. If these people can be caught and put behind bars, so much the better for all of us, especially the women they exploit.

All the same, I'm unhappy with the thought that accounts in general are subject to this kind of covert surveillance. We're not talking here about investigations of people who are already under suspicion (which I'm sure no one could complain about), but about combing through all our financial affairs on a daily basis. I'm sure I didn't consent to that when I opened my bank account.

The reason this bank has not allowed its name to be published is surely because, if it did, it would quickly lose most of its customers.

Read the terms and conditions, you probably did consent to it, however it'll generally be under the "guise" of detecting suspicious activity in order to protect your account.

Banks (and other financial institutions) already have to report certain activities under AML (Anti Money-Laundering) legislation.

Sometime, probably back in the 70's, I became aware that any data in a computer centre (70s remember) was subject to (undeclared, now known as covert) analysis. And not only by the data centre owner. Australian Federal government site as it happens.

Nothing that has happened since has surprised me at all.

In this country, it's said, we have more CCTV than anywhere else.

Add to that, your communications online are monitored, every transaction you make with plastic / online is also monitored and logged, your smartphone tracks your whereabouts, as does public transport in the capital, we already live in a surveillance state. The danger of this type of data collection is profiling - and more so - what profiling is used for. And even if private companies perform this kind of surveillance for e.g. "marketing", the data can be demanded by law enforcement agencies - read "continuously monitored".

Simply monitoring criminals is the perfect pretext for this type of technology, but as we know it also gets used around the world to suppress political activism or identify "problem" individuals.

I think that we all need to acknowledge that the Internet has "grown up" now, and that all of this technology we've invented in the past three decades is now in everyone's breast pocket, but that there are no laws. We need laws now, and the means to make them stick.

My biggest concern is the amount of data that is in private hands. For instance, like it or not, your iPhone analyzes every picture that you take for faces, and it sends those faces ... somewhere. "Somewhere" that is not "the guv'mint." Likewise, your car can be driven remotely ... yes, right now. The most-intimate details of your life including "the privacy of your own home™" is routinely violated, and you don't know.

"The ends don't justify the means." If the bank was obeying a search warrant issued by a court, that might be one thing. But plenty of things like this happen "for marketing reasons."

The danger is – "this is what World War III is gonna look like." It won't be fought by armies and navies; it will be fought in each homeland. Attackers have quietly but thoroughly penetrated the land, and they know everything that there is to know about their victims. The terror will become complete when it is realized that the governments who are supposed to be able to protect the public ... can't.

I have absolutely not an iota of a divided mind in this. A banking institution is a professional service ostensibly for storing one's valuables in a place safer than in one's mattress. We hire them to safeguard those valuables. Period. They essentially contract to us. Investigating our transactions, seeking evidence of bad behaviour is not only a conflict of interest but a crazy slippery slope that already has extended to even denying purchases that someone at the bank disagrees with, often on some misguided moral grounds. This can very easily evolve into Politically Correct, where purchases of books, movies, etc. can be denied as someone other than the actual owner of the funds, desires. This is far more than mere invasion of privacy. This is a violation of what are labelled as "inalienable rights" in the US governments most important and fundamental documents and safeguards. In short, this smacks of Slavery. "One can walk too far for twapence".

In the days before computers, all your cheques were handled by bank staff. Do you think that they didn't notice suspicious behaviour?

A few years ago I got a telephone call from one bank asking if I'd bought a bike on-line. They'd refused a subsequent purchase which took my card over the limit and noticed that the bike wasn't the sort of thing I'd normally buy. Of course, my card had been compromised and they were able to get back to the dealer and tell them to cancel the order. Did I grumble that they noticed I wasn't a cyclist? Of course not.

We sometimes forget what is a right versus a privilege and using a credit card is not a right. As stated it is nothing more then a contract between you and your banking institution. Records held by third parties such as financial records are generally not protected under the U.S. invasion of privacy law unless there is a specific federal law.

There are laws on the books to deal with important social issues such as money laundering ... and things that are ... ahh ... "considerably worse.™" These laws do impose positive duties upon financial institutions, and with socially-good reasons.

If the bank was acting in accordance with laws and with Federal Reserve and Treasury directives under those laws (as we can actually presume that they were), that's one thing. But ... "trust, but verify."

My main concern is that our privacy laws (and many other issues relating to The Internet et al) are "very seriously under-developed." Not only governments, but private companies, are right now doing things "just because they technically can," and we have not yet stopped to properly concern ourselves with where legal boundaries should properly lie. So far, it seems to me that we have been too infatuated with all this astonishing new technology, which has entered into our lifestyle so very, very, fast.

Regarding rights, privileges, contracts and the actual hierarchy contracts are not supposed to be allowed to abrogate Law/Rights. This does happen however and usually occurs when a service or institution becomes so powerful, and/or integral to the workings of society that they exist outside the normal checks and balances systems and reach a state approaching monopoly where they can not only fix prices but dictate terms. You brought up the issue of credit cards even though, at least for a little while longer, it is possible to live and work without them yet still be investigated by these very people/institutions that normally have a vested and uncompromised interest in their clients well-being, including an expectation of some privacy. They surely respond with dreadful action when the tables are turned.

Frankly none of us would need a specific Federal law if each side of the contractors were dealt with as equals instead of one being merely a Cash Cow. A perfect example of this sort of thing run wild is the now infamous buying up of patents on medicines required for continuation of life and the subsequent gouging by inflating the price to 1000 times it's previous (and profitable) price. This usually can only happen when competition is stymied by monopolistic protections under Law, which lately seems to have leaned heavily on the mandated monopoly and all but forgotten the flip side that makes such things as patents good for us all by limiting gouging and duration until incorporated into the Public Domain in reasonable time. It has become like the "you get half and I get half, but my half is bigger than your half" double-speak.

If you are content with such dealings I suspect the proper response is "Moo!" Alas Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we hardly knew ye".

I'm happy that my bank monitors my account for suspicious activity even though it has caused an embarassment to both them and me in the past.
It just happened a few years ago that my car insurance and house insuranceS all fell in the same month so I sat down and paid them all online along with some other bills.
The bank stopped the second and subsequent transactions and one of the payees rang me to inform me immediately. At the same time my bank rang me to ask me if the transactions were initiated by me so I ended up with the payee on the land line and the bank on my mobile (because the land line was engaged) . The annoying part was that the bank should have checked and seen that the same glut of transactions occurred at roughly the same time every year.