When you buy something online, you obviously need to give your card details, which are tied to you. Virtual cards solve that, but, in the UK (and I think most places) you also need to provide a billing address. I don’t think virtual card providers give you a masked billing address and I doubt you will be able to use a PO box with most banks to try and prevent fraud. Because of this, can online purchases still be linked to you even with virtual cards?
I don’t think virtual cards are meant to be more anonymous? My understanding is that it prevents that your original card details get stolen in online transactions
That makes sense, thanks for your reply!
VCs are just there to protect the CC companies. They don’t care about your data. Even the term identity theft is a scam. It’s not your identity you protect, but their money. The way to protect your identity and information is not to give it out in the first place.
" I write ‘identity theft’ in quotes as it’s a propaganda term for the old-fashioned offence of impersonation. In the old days, if someone went to a bank, pretended to be me, borrowed money from them and vanished, then that was the bank’s problem, not mine. In the USA and the UK, banks have recently taken to claiming that it’s my identity that’s been stolen rather than their money, and that this somehow makes me liable. So I also parenthesise ‘victims’ — the banks are the real victims, except in sofar as they commit secondary fraud against the customer. There’s an excellent discussion of this by Adam Shostack and Paul Syverson. "
Security Engineering by Ross Anderson
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