All our other customers have complied, said the employee at a bank in Erbil, trying to get me to tell him what my monthly income was.
I told him that my income was private information and I was not willing to share, and none of his business either, as I was not asking for a loan or something else that would require that information.
I was once again having a fight with a bank in the Middle East, and again over privacy. When withdrawing money I was told to ‘update’ my account, and got stuck in a discussion I did not even want to have.
Banks in Iraq, and the Middle East, mirror the attitudes of the area, where privacy is a Western concept. The first questions you get - are you married and do you have children? Things which many westerners consider as most private.
But not here: everybody should be married and have children, that’s a fact of life. But surely it is not a fact that we are all corrupt or a terrorist.
Because that’s what this invasion of our privacy is about; like when my bank asked me, repeatedly in the past, about the source of money coming into my account.
Grinding my teeth, I had to submit the information, as because of the battle against groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda, and the fight against the corruption that is burdening many countries in the Middle East, the region is being submitted to rules and regulations that would never be acceptable in most western nations.
The Americans have imposed regulations on authorities in the Middle East to prevent money laundering and terror groups being able to get their hands on money, as well as to prevent tax evasion (by Americans).
Banks are obliged to disclose information just in case one of their customers is an American citizen, and if the American authorities find out that this person did not disclose his/her personal information, the bank is made to suffer. So this rule affects the privacy of all clients of the bank, regardless of their nationality.
The demand for information about my income was the result of a new regulation of the Iraqi Central Bank, as part of the above.
The main effect though, is that in most western countries laws, rules and regulations protect the privacy of civilians, while western leaders who are locally bound to them, elsewhere use the lack of these guarantees to invade the privacy of civilians that are not their own.
I wonder how many people in the Middle East, who submit to bullying by their bank to give information, really know who and what’s behind it – and if they did, if they would still be so ‘eager’ to do as asked.
The lack of privacy goes hand in hand with a culture where people love to gossip about others, and where any personal detail that reaches the outside world, will be told over and again without anyone checking if it is really true.
When I asked the bank employee for internet banking, so I can keep up with what happens in my account in a modern way, he refused and said that I could simply phone or email the bank to ask if money had been transferred into my account.
That’s how safe my confidential information is: It can simply be discussed by phone or email, in a country where all calls are monitored by a number of agencies and countries, and in a world where the hacking of email accounts has even effected the outcome of elections.
I think it’s time people became aware of the dangers of giving away private information to institutions that have no right to it, and at the same time do not guarantee to protect it.
Therefore, I call on all those banking in Iraq to think twice before they give any personal or confidential information to a bank.
And if you are not convinced it will be handled correctly, or even is necessary, then please refuse, because only if we all do, the banks will have to tell governments that new regulations are not workable.
Let’s not make ourselves victims, but stand up for our civil rights. One of them is to have our privacy guaranteed, unless other, bigger issues are at stake.
And whoever thinks that terrorism or corruption can be fought by registering the income a client claims to have, then they must be living beyond illusion.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
