Good morning everyone. A few days ago, I was checking my US Bank credit cards via the US Bank iPhone app and saw this popup: Share your location to help keep your account secure. According to the popup, by sharing my location with the US Bank app, this will help reduce credit card declines and prevent fraud. Theoretically, it makes sense. If you (and your phone) are in California, but there is an in-store purchase made with your credit card in New York City, US Bank would block the charge. Likewise, if you are driving through Oregon and decide to visit a Nike store and stock up on tax-free sports gear (fun fact: Oregon is one of four states with no sales tax, the other states are Delaware, Montana, and New Hampshire), US Bank will know that you are in Oregon and allow the purchase. Makes perfect sense to me.
If you do want to share your location with the US Bank app, go to your settings, find the US Bank app, click the Location link, then select Always. That means that the app will always know where you are, 24/7, 365 days a year. I wasn’t comfortable with US Bank knowling my location 24/7/365, so I opted to share my location only While Using the App. As you can tell by the first screenshot, I do not use my US Bank credit cards often, so any unusual purchase should be flagged.
What do you think of this location tracking feature of the US Bank app? Do you want to share your location with US Bank 24/7/365? Would you like to see other credit card companies implement this feature into their apps? Let me know what you think. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!
I find the whole tracking thing really creepy. Despite that, I would agree to be tracked consistently if the bank absolutely swore that they would *never* share any information with any other party under any circumstances and that no information would be used for sales or advertising purposes.
I agree with you, but I’m sure the credit card companies would sell the tracking data to other companies.