Privacy and anonymity

A coalition of 51 consumer, privacy, and civil rights groups express support for legislation which would prohibit brick-and-mortar retailers from refusing to accept cash or charging consumers more for paying with cash.

Has Covid-19 speeded up a phenomenon already under way, favouring online retailing and the many alternative means of payment? Not quite as the banknote industry hits back against claims on the decline of cash.

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way we pay. Some central banks have accelerated their digital currency programmes. This would provide governments with frightening new powers.

Despite the scale of the Covid-19 pandemic, the payment system has weathered the storm; no systemic outages of core payments infrastructure have been reported. Payments systems - cash and non-cash - have proved resilient and robust and have continued to enjoy trust from the general public.

Speaking at Slush, a Finnish student-driven technology event, Alex Gladstein Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation makes a strong case for financial privacy. The lack of options in terms of transaction methods opens the door to exploitation by authoritarian regimes and surveillance capitalism.

1 in 4 women experiences domestic abuse in their lifetime. In the UK, one woman reveals how she wouldn’t have escaped her abusive partner without having access to cash.

As Facebook publishes its white paper on Libra, the code-name for its future global digital currency, it is probably timely to reflect on the value of privacy and more particularly the value of privacy in payments.

Data Protection Day is an international effort held annually on January 28. Amidst the importance of safeguarding data and enabling trust, cash should be considered a viable and secure alternative.

2 billion MasterCard customers have seen their data being used by Google to track their shopping behavior. The problem? Nobody was aware of the secret deal between the credit card company and the internet giant.

Central banks must not ignore cash's capacity to protect people's privacy and anonymity and this should become a key topic of discussion for any future debates about an all-digital central bank-issued currency.

An increasing number of festivals shifted to cashless, favouring benefits over participants' freedom of choice and convenience.

Contrary to what is said, the push for cashlessness in Sweden is not "natural" and not demanded by consumers. There is a lot to gain from a cashless society for players of the payments landscape.