• G20 leaders agreed to build infrastructure for digital currencies and IDs.
• Critics fear governments may use them to monitor spending and silence dissent.
• EU proposes UN regulate AI and for digital public infrastructures to be trusted, interoperable and open to all.
At the G20 summit in New Delhi, leaders from the world’s leading rich and developing nations have agreed to a plan to eventually implement digital currencies and digital IDs on their respective populations. This comes amid concern that governments might use digital currencies and IDs to monitor their people’s spending and crush dissent.
Though discussions are underway to create international regulations for cryptocurrencies, the G20 stated that there was “no talk of banning cryptocurrency” at the summit. Critics are concerned that governments and central banks will eventually regulate cryptocurrencies and then immediately replace them with central bank digital currencies (CBDC), which lack similar privacy and security. It has been suggested that regulation of digital currencies could allow government authorities to impose a social credit score system and decide how citizens can spend their money.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for digital ID systems similar to COVID-19 vaccine passports and for an international regulatory body for artificial intelligence (AI). She also proposed that the United Nations play a role in AI regulation and that the European Union’s COVID-19 digital certificate be used as a model for digital public infrastructures (DPI) including digital IDs. The European Union is also currently attempting to introduce a bloc-wide “digital identity” app.
Ms. von der Leyen stated that “the future is digital” and that “digital public infrastructures are an accelerator of growth. They must be trusted, interoperable and open to all.”
G20 leaders have agreed to a plan to eventually impose digital currencies and digital IDs on their respective populations. The Epoch Times has the story.
The leaders of the Group of 20 nations have agreed to a plan to eventually impose digital currencies and digital IDs on their respective populations, amid concern that governments might use them to monitor their people’s spending and crush dissent.
The G20, which is made up of the world’s leading rich and developing nations and is currently under India’s presidency, adopted a final declaration on the subject over the weekend in New Delhi.
The group announced last week that they had agreed to build the necessary infrastructure to implement digital currencies and IDs.
While the group said that discussions are already underway to create international regulations for cryptocurrencies, it claimed that there was “no talk of banning cryptocurrency” at the summit.
Many critics are concerned that governments and central banks will eventually regulate cryptocurrencies and then immediately replace them with central bank digital currencies (CBDC), which lack similar privacy and security. …
Critics say that these proposals might allow government authorities to impose a social credit score system and decide how their citizens can spend their money.
At the summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for digital ID systems similar to COVID-19 vaccine passports and for an international regulatory body for artificial intelligence (AI).
She called for the United Nations to have a role in AI regulation and called the European Union’s COVID-19 digital certificate a perfect model for digital public infrastructures (DPI), which would include digital IDs.
“Many of you are familiar with the COVID-19 digital certificate. The EU developed it for itself. The model was so functional and so trusted that 51 countries on four continents adopted it for free,” Ms. von der Leyen said.
“Today, the WHO uses it as a global standard to facilitate mobility in times of health threats. I want to thank Dr. Tedros again for the excellent cooperation,” she said, referring to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The European Union is currently trying to introduce a bloc-wide “digital identity” app that would consolidate various personal information, including passports, driver’s licences and medical history.
“The future is digital. I passed two messages to the G20. We should establish a framework for safe, responsible AI, with a similar body as the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] for climate. Digital public infrastructures are an accelerator of growth. They must be trusted, interoperable and open to all,” Ms. von der Leyen wrote on social media.
