Banking institutions have sought to automate customer service through websites and, more recently, through TRApps.
https://www.fsfla.org/anuncio/2023-03-TRApps
What these banks are saving in offices and staff, we customers are paying for with security and freedom. They are morally bankrupt.
Genuine security never depends on secret software. On the contrary, transparency strengthens security.
Nevertheless, these banks impose on us, in the name of security (their own, not ours), various harmful behaviors:
the use of software that we cannot control and whose actions on our computers are hidden from us;
the use of too-short passwords; and
the use of devices and operating systems designed to run under someone else's control, and to collect and exfiltrate our data.
Running software controlled by others always implies a loss of freedom, and a threat to security and privacy.
The requirement to use these programs has become so common and persistent that it seems unavoidable. Thus, we have decided to expand our campaign against imposed taxing software beyond state-controlled institutions to also include private services and goods whose providers converge on such impositions.
https://www.fsfla.org/anuncio/2023-04-bancarrota#softimp
We share our board member Alexandre Oliva's recent account of his over 20 years of struggle against technological abuse by banks in his country. We highlight his recent legal victory: online banking services must be restored without requiring the installation of programs other than a standard browser. Read more:
https://www.fsfla.org/texto/bancarrota
Since 2006, we have been running a campaign against imposed taxing software: programs that are imposed in the sense that you cannot avoid them, and taxing in the sense that they burden you in a way that resembles a tax, but is exempt from social benefits and paid for with your freedom.
Nonfree programs are unjust and too onerous (even when they are nominally gratis), because they imply a loss of freedom, that is, of control over your digital life. When this burden (of suppressed freedom) is compounded with the imposition of use of such programs, they become profoundly oppressive: imposed taxing software.
Our initial focus was on oppressive software imposed by governments, such as mandatory tax-related programs and software required to interact with public banks.
https://www.fsfla.org/circular/2006-11#Editorial
While pressuring the government to liberate income tax software in Brazil, we have been updating and publishing a compatible and freedom-respecting version every year since 2007.
https://www.fsfla.org/anuncio/2012-10-Acesso-SoftImp
https://www.fsfla.org/~lxoliva/fsfla/irpf-livre/
In 2023, we extended the campaign to taxing software imposed by private providers: when freedom-depriving software is required to obtain or enjoy products or services.
To be clear, this campaign is not (solely) about software for taxation, but rather about software that is taxing (an unjust burden, because it taxes your freedom; the software is itself like a tax), and that, on top of that, is imposed, thus profoundly oppressive.
Free Software Foundation Latin America joined in 2005 the international FSF network, previously formed by Free Software Foundations in the United States, in Europe and in India. These sister organizations work in their corresponding geographies towards promoting the same Free Software ideals and defending the same freedoms for software users and developers, working locally but cooperating globally.
https://www.fsfla.org/
Copyright 2023 FSFLA
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