This article was originally published by Ethan Huff at Natural News. 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) published a report recently that warns about the very serious privacy risks associated with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

According to the paper, entitled “Central Bank Digital Currency Data Use and Privacy Protection,” any central bank can use its CBDC system to collect all sorts of private information about users. It could then turn that private information over to the authorities for mass surveillance and possibly persecution reasons.

“CBDC data allows for commercial exploitation while also raising the possibility of state surveillance,” the IMF warns.

The way CBDCs work is that every time a transaction is made, all sorts of private information is transferred and uploaded into the blockchain as proof. That information is then open game for government authorities and anyone else to exploit it for ulterior purposes.

“Central bank digital currency (CBDC), as a digital form of central bank money, may allow for a ‘digital trail’ – data – to be collected and stored,” the paper explains.

“In contrast to cash, CBDC could be designed to potentially include a wealth of personal data, encapsulating transaction histories, user demographics, and behavioral patterns. Personal data could establish a link between counterparty identities and transactions.”

The paper goes on to explain that there is economic value in CBDCs due to the data trail it creates. Data is considered an “infrastructural resource that can be used by an unlimited number of users and for an unlimited number of purposes as an input to produce goods and services.”

“CBDC data could potentially be harvested by financial institutions that, in turn, could help develop data-driven businesses,” the paper continues.

(Related: More than 98 percent of the world’s central banks are preparing now to help unleash a new global cashless society once the time has come.)

Should the general public have access to everyone’s private spending habits?

What kind of data is collected when using a CBDC, you might be wondering? Besides the payer’s and payee’s names and identities, there is also transaction data for both payer and payee as well as metadata about the merchant’s name, location, and spending category.

Credit card companies already collect and store this type of information about users and their transactions, but central banks are not privy to it unless they pursue it with a warrant. CBDCs, on the other hand, are an open book for the money masters to track every single purchase that every user makes.

Whatever the agenda of the central banks, CBDCs allow the money masters to collect and use data to achieve their policy objectives. Some of the use ideas presented in the IMF paper include:

• Reducing information asymmetries

• Assisting in support of financial inclusion

• Facilitating payment system interoperability

• Promoting innovation and market contestability

CBDC data can also be used to produce more timely and up-to-date information about the state of the world at any given moment, as well as help policymakers develop better macroeconomic solutions to problems while remaining in regulatory compliance.

The problem, of course, is that anyone can access private data in CBDC systems. Unlike the current paradigm, everyone’s private spending habits would become an open book in a CBDC system, allowing criminals and those with malintent to wreak havoc throughout society.

“Having read through the paper, the IMF is doing a whole lot of gaslighting, pretending to lay out ‘all options’ or something, when in reality they are outright telling us that the implementation of CBDCs will be a total loss of freedom and liberty,” warns Winepress News‘ Jacob M. Thompson.

“We know the IMF is gaslighting just based on some of the other draconian statements it has made over the last several years.”

Before a new global cashless society can emerge, Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) first have to go. Learn more at FinanceRiot.com.