22seven scary T&Cs getting revised
A clause in the terms of service of newly launched money management service, 22seven, has caused some alarm among those following developments around the service.
22seven requires users to provide their online banking account numbers, PINs and passwords, in order to automatically pull transaction information into its personal financial management tool.
They have assured users that they aren’t able to look at or store these credentials and instead pass them onto a third party financial information aggregation service based in the US – Yodlee.
Questions around the security of Yodlee have been addressed with assurances that they have been in business since 1999 without any breaches. Yodlee’s security is also audited as if they were a bank, the companies have said.
However, section 4.2 of 22seven’s terms of service states, among other things: “By using the Services, you grant us and our authorised service providers the right to use…distribute…any information, data, security credentials…”
It goes on to say: “We and our authorised service providers may use, modify, display, distribute…disseminate such Content…”
Needless to say, this raised many questions about what 22seven and Yodlee intend to do with users’ security credentials.
This also comes in the wake of strong opposition from South African banks about people giving their login information to third parties. Absa has come out particularly strongly against 22seven, even going so far as to block Yodlee from accessing its customers’ data.
When the question was first raised, 22seven said that their privacy police explains exactly what they can and can’t do with their users’ information.
22seven has since revealed that they are reworking their terms of service.
“Thanks for all the feedback on our terms of service – it really shows that people are thinking seriously about their money,” said Chris Tisdall, head of operations.
“We agree that there is room for improvement. We are working with our lawyer to make the terms as clear as day so that they leave no questions unanswered. The wording must reflect our actual practices more precisely. We will provide feedback as soon as possible.”
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