QUESTION
Is it illegal for a person at a bank to give out your account information to family?
Asked on May 16th, 2013 on General Practice - Indiana
More details to this question:
My cousin works at a bank, where my grandma has an account. Recently i took a couple checks from my grandma to get some money i needed. My grandma's account was lower than what i thought. While it didn't overdraft her account it was definitely down. My cousin who noticed it was low looks into her account information (balance,debits, etc) and found the checks i had cashed.. She then called my grandma and told her what she found out, along with all of my grandma's kids. They, who were rightfully angry, called the cops and filed a report. My grandma never wanted to file charges and didn't. The cops came, talked to me, told me no charges were being filed at this time and that a detective might call me. But isn't that fact my cousin looked at her account w/out her permission and told my family said information illegal? If so isn't the police report and charges that might be filed "fruit of the poisonous tree"?
1 ANSWER
No and no. Your cousin is an employee of the bank, and the bank, while it should not share the information with third parties, certainly has the right to look at its own account information. Sharing the information with the account holder (your grandma) was not improper in any way. Arguably, depending on the instructions your grandma had given them about sharing the information with her kids, your cousin should not have shared the information with your grandma's kids, but that is between the bank and your grandma; if she agreed to it, either before or after the fact, it would be permissible, but either way the grievance would be your grandma's, not yours. As for fruit of the poisonous tree, it does not apply for at least two reasons. First, the term refers to evidence gathered BY THE POLICE as the result of an illegal search; this evidence was gathered by private parties. Second, if anyone's rights were violated, it was your grandma's, not yours. Therefore, if improper evidence was gathered against her, she could protest, but there is nothing to stop the evidence from being used against you.
Answered on May 16th, 2013 at 11:02 AM