This may not be the best question for this community, but I believe it should be open ended.
The reason I have been thinking about this question is because someone once said: “as soon as you turn 18, card companies will start sending you offers and advertisements”. How do they get that information? Is it through my bank or something else I naively signed up for?
I am a big “opsec” nut. I take steps to not give out my information. I do not give information to social media websites as I do not even have an account on most of them. I only just closed my only bank account I ever had. I do not have any subscriptions or services. And you can assume the rest.
I think this would be a good test to see what may have leaked to companies so far.
I don’t know many other ways I can ask the question. I just want to be prepared and be unknown.
Not exactly asking for advice, just what precautions everyone else has taken in their life. If I am asking in the wrong place, I hope I can get good redirection.
You will need a bank account to do pretty much anything in adult life. So, I would recommend opening an account at a local credit union. Credit unions are small and owned by their members, so they won’t sell your info to anyone or send you ads. There are many other pros to using a credit union instead of a large bank, but privacy is a big one.
Security aside, you’re going to have a horrible time if you don’t have any open bank accounts or credit accounts. It’s going to set you back not just years, but potentially decades.
Banks only lend money to people who have a track record of handling money well. If you have no track record of being able to handle money and then they won’t offer you loans. At this point your life you may think who cares… but in 10 years are you going to want to buy a car? Apply for an apartment? Buy a home someday? Without a credit history, the answer to all those will be no.
I’m assuming you’re American… If you have an SSN, you will get credit card offers. It’s called prescreened offers. They get that information from credit bureaus, which already have your SSN. You can opt out if credit card offers and the bureaus selling your data for 10 years I think.
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/prescreened-credit-insurance-offers
Voter registration is public information and sufficient for cold callers.
If you live independently you will inevitably have to make privacy sacrifices for the sake of expediency. Having a bank account is probably going to be one of them. There are many essential services that you use but probably do not think of as an eighteen year old that may share information when you provide for yourself such as your phone carrier, ISP, utilities such as power, water, gas etc, insurance, health services, education or certification providers, employment or recruitment agencies, the list just goes on and you will have to thoroughly evaluate every company you interact with and in many cases there will simply be no realistic privacy respecting option.
Keep fighting to protect your privacy but don’t put an impossible burden on yourself to be perfect. You will make mistakes, you will make compromises, you will probably get spam. Welcome to late stage capitalism.
So in information security, there’s a concept that you shouldn’t go through more expense than the information you’re trying to protect has value.
In your case, not having a bank account is pointless. It’s a big inconvenience and ultimately opens more vulnerabilities. Your goal is to be secure, not to not exist. Having an address is enough to get junk mail.
