On Thursday the Treasury & Bank of England responded to the public consultation on the introduction of a UK #CBDC, which over 50,000 of you took part in.
Despite the overwhelming response to the consultation was WE DON'T WANT ONE the government are pushing ahead with it anyway. They didn't even prepare an excuse, now you just have to comply.
Susannah Copson, Legal and Policy Officer at Big Brother Watch summed up the decision by saying: “It’s puzzling that the Government is pushing ahead with plans to pilot a digital pound despite failing to explain to the public or parliament why one is needed. It’s a solution in search of a problem that could pose serious risks of privacy intrusion, security breaches and inequality in the UK."
“The Government’s new commitment to introduce laws that would prohibit the state programming digital pounds to control how they’re spent, and to protect financial privacy, shows that the 50,000 of us that responded to the consultation have had a real impact, although we await further detail to see how robust the legal and technological protections are. We still have serious privacy concerns about a digital pound becoming a Spycoin since the Government also said today that a UK CBDC, unlike cash, will not be anonymous to enable surveillance and financial policing."
“In the context of the Government’s current legislation to decimate the data protection framework and introduce mass bank spying on the premise of dealing with welfare fraud, the public will rightly have very little trust in the Government’s respect for financial privacy. Privacy by promise is not enough.”
“The Treasury and the Bank of England will need to go further to explain why the UK needs a CBDC and how the public’s rights, equality and civil liberties would be protected”.
Asked why Britain needs a CBDC the government minister's (lack of an) answer is astonishing.