JPMorgan hit with $200M in fines for letting employees use WhatsApp

No doubt widespread and certainly not a good idea for oversight, however, the insinuation that all usage was due to employees wanting to avoid oversight isn&#x27;t correct. Particularly during the pandemic, employees were forced into communicating using messaging software and many prefer to communicate using software with a good user experience.<p>The messaging software used within banks (e.g. Symphony) is really awful and it is particularly bad when you&#x27;re no longer able to speak to clients in person.<p>They should improve the messaging software they use, on top of getting everybody to do the training for the 100th time, etc.

Title from article: &quot;JPMorgan hit with $200 million in fines for letting employees use WhatsApp to evade regulators&#x27; reach&quot;

JPMorgan has been fined 191 times for over $35B since 2000.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org&#x2F;parent&#x2F;jpmorgan-chase" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org&#x2F;parent&#x2F;jpmorgan-c...</a><p>&quot;Oh, $200M? Yeah just stack it over there with the others. &#x27;k thx bye.&quot;

I work in finance and, for compliance reasons, we&#x27;ve been trying to stamp out employees using WhatsApp but it is basically impossible.<p>No matter how much we threaten disciplinary action in our handbook, people still use it, they just hide it more. Obviously we have no way of proving it, but we can see people doing it when the office is open. The financial regulator says we should use technology to reduce WhatsApp use - but given it&#x27;s happening on personal phones, I&#x27;m not sure what we&#x27;re supposed to do. Obviously nobody would accept company spyware on their personal phone.<p>Is there some solution to this issue that I&#x27;m missing?

(do not work in finance so excuse the dumb question but) if there is this requirement for all employee communications to be tracked for compliance purposes, how are&#x2F;were face to face meetings recorded? Or just chatting in the corridor? Is that not allowed?

This problem is rampant in the military, to the point that orders are now often given over WhatsApp in some cases. There&#x27;s been numerous security leaks as such, and any internal affairs seem to get out in a matter of minutes, with people forwarding it on to other group chats.

The headline here reads a bit like &quot;person takes mask off to eat a sandwich&quot;.<p>Obviously people use messaging software with their colleagues.<p>The correct solution is to design systems in which that isn&#x27;t an issue. If you need to monitor what people are saying at all times then you have far bigger problems.

In my last trip to South Asia I was surprised banks using WhatsApp to request identification documents.

Accountants, traders, executives, bankers, etc all have strict rules designed to avoid the appearance of impropriety. However, it seems that members of congress are held to a much lower standard.

&quot;It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minuted to ruin it. If you think about that you&#x27;ll do things differently&quot; --Warren Buffett (b. 1930)

Does this mean that WhatsApp is secure or that this particular agency didn’t care enough to break the encryption?

I’d be pretty embarrassed if I was JPMorgan and I hadn’t profited at least ten times that much from illicit private messaging.

I don&#x27;t actually like this dual agency enforcement action at the same time, when Gary Gensler at the SEC was also chair of the CFTC several years before.<p>Its really clear that he is coordinating this and making it more likely to stick by splitting each cattle prod between the agencies.