For context; I live in a NOT progressive country/region where being LGBT is illegal, and I often post in LGBT spaces. I want to do digital transactions but am afraid of the above will quickly get me in jail.
That is broadly the case with any bank account, credit, or debit card. The ‘digital’ part of a digital bank account just means there isn’t a physical bank location to visit.
If you are worried about your government tracking the details of your financials, cash is the only option which cannot be surveilled easily.
There’s also cryptocurrency. Not as invisible as many would have you believe, especially when KYC checks are involved, but there are definitely ways to stay hidden with it, by choosing certain exchanges, transfer methods, and currencies.
Not as straightforward of an answer as OP is probably hoping for though, and it also depends heavily on the recipient of the money.
There’s some countries that accept it as payment fairly widely, and a couple that have even properly adopted it iirc.
In general though, no, but it’s certainly usable globally and would get around OP’s problem if the recipient accepts it. And if OP can be bothered with the hassle of learning about it.
The bank can see your transaction. They may be part of a mandatory (or voluntary) reporting scheme.
The bank will not in general know about other things you do that don’t involve financial transactions.
Basically as long as you don’t link your bank account with your social media accounts in any way, you’ll be fine. Basically don’t put your real name on your social media accounts, which no doubt you don’t do anyways. Don’t for example add bank information to say a Google account linked to that social media account.
The bank only sees the information you provide it, which is where you send your money and where it comes from. A bank cannot rat you out unless you are sending or receiving money from something illegal in your country.
A government investigating you on say social media might try to obtain information about your account to eventually tie said account to a real person. For example, you might use a Gmail to sign up to a queer site, and that google account might have bank information if you have Google bank information. Then the government will use said bank information to identify you. Just don’t put your bank information on anything linked to your social media accounts.
This is good advice.
just wanted to add that OP needs to mask their IP. If they log to social media and other sites, including their bank, with their real IP then the correlation is easily done by a government that will have access to ISP’s logs.
I’d recommend OP to use a VPN for all their online traffic, making an exception to their bank because they might block VPN/Tor.
Also, it’s quite important that they never give their real phone number and don’t reuse email accounts. Having a separate browser profile is also a good practice.
I’m not usually a “this” guy, but I thought it might be worth pointing out that this seems like the best advice of all the other answers.
Yes. If your country is authoritarian use cryptocurrency such as Monero. Even Bitcoin can be much better.
The bank would know the amount, the merchant and other details even if it’s a merchant from abroad. The bank might have a duty to report certain transactions or could be forced to give out a record. Other international payment process or foreign banks will generally not refuse a request if it comes from a country government you are a citizen of.
You can use crypto to buy gift cards to shop at regular retailers. This is your safest bet if you’re concerned about a state surveillance of your transactions.
Assuming banks in your country follow typical banking industry regulations, an account with a digital bank doesn’t really differ much from opening an account in person at a local branch. Banks report to the government for tax purposes, and transactions may also be monitored because of anti money laundering regulations.
You need to clarify the relation between banking transactions and posting in LGBT spaces though. Do you mean your transactions are directly related like donating to LGBT orgs? Or do you just mean you don’t want your online activity (posting and communicating on forums) connected back to you? If it’s the latter, then you need to look more into anonymization (i.e. use throwaway user accounts and don’t share personal info; get a vpn; etc.)
