China’s Cryptocurrency
| China’s Cryptocurrency | |
|---|---|
| Short Title | China is Working on a State-Issued E-Currency |
| Location | China |
| Date | 2019 |
| Solove Harm | Surveillance, Identification |
| Information | Authenticating, Identifying, Account, Ownership, Transactional, Behavioral |
| Threat Actors | Chinese government |
| Individuals | |
| Affected | Chinese people |
| High Risk Groups | |
| Tangible Harms | |
China's cryptocurrency would allow the government track citizens spending behavior and de-anonymize people during shopping.
Description
The People’s Bank of China started a cryptocurrency research group in 2014, and already in 2016 the central bank’s governor at the time had mused about issuing a digital coin.
The system emerging in China looks very different from Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that enthusiasts have championed as tools of emancipation from big banks and governments.
A state-issued e-currency would help China’s government know much more about how its citizens spend their money, giving it sweeping new powers to fight crime and manage the economy while also raising privacy concerns. Surveillance
It would give the government extraordinary power and visibility into the financial system, more than any central bank has today.
China has suggested that it, too, will keep spending information away from marketers — but not from the authorities. The banks and electronic payment companies that will distribute the new digital currency already require users to authenticate their names and identities.Identification
Laws and Regulations
Sources
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/technology/china-cryptocurrency-facebook-libra.html