So here's another "Palestinian refugee in Norway" story. As you may know, I was told my phone was hacked towards the end of May last year. The repeated warnings came from a source in Saudi Arabia. I ditched my phone immediately...
...But it wasn't enough to just get a new phone. I had to change my entire communication system. Part of the changes was that I no longer use a regular phone. I do have a line, but I never use it.
Not to get into details etc but the whole secure comms setup is expensive and it's all on me, so I cancelled my phone plan. I don't need one if I'm no longer gonna use a phone line.
That was all well and good until a couple days ago when I had to call the GP ("fastlege" in Norwegian) to report my suspected #COVID19 symptoms. I realized I have to get top-up credit since I had no plan.
...And I couldn't get the top up credit needed for me to call the doctor, because the online store requires second-layer authentication (BankID) which Norwegian banks deny to Palestinian refugees such as myself.
Normally I'd walk to the corner store and buy a top-up code printed on a paper. But I'm in self-quarantine remember, and I wasn't going to do something that irresponsible. I sorted it out eventually (through someone else's account) but it took a couple hours.
Not everyone would be in my position. But it's a fact that Norwegian banks legally deny Palestinian refugees a verified online identity. This means we can't use many online stores, even at a time of social distancing and self-quarantines.
When you inquire, the Norwegian banks will throw the problem to the government and the government will throw it back to the Norwegian banks. Meanwhile I'm going to do the responsible thing and self-quarantine.
#COVID19 doesn't discriminate between people based upon national origin, but Norwegian banks do. And at a time like this, it's more than just an inconvenience. When everyone is asked to rise to the occasion, the structural inequalities in our societies become on display.
