Financial privacy = human right

In the ever-more digital age, financial privacy is becoming critical for survival. Even though many still don't think so, we will show that the opposite is true...

As recent events all around the world have shown, human rights are in huge danger. Once politicians and government officials decide to fight against something “in the name of greater good,” they are not afraid to use any means necessary. Sometimes, however, this can go too far and can lead to violation of basic human rights, one of which is financial privacy.

The violation of this right has been very clear in the recent months all around the world. The best example of this was provided by the Canadian law enforcements, who have gone out of their way to fight against the Canadian convoy protest. Yet, they unknowingly showed why financial privacy is extremely important.

What happened to financial privacy in Canada?

While the protests of Canadian truckers, known as Canada freedom convoy, were a reaction to governments Covid-19 mandates, the whole situation that emerged showed the importance of Bitcoin. Bitcoin and its community had become central to the protesters, who appreciated the support of people from all around the world.

However, one of the biggest takeaways from the protests was the government overreach that can, and thus will, happen. Once the Canadian government declared the state of emergency and invoked the Emergencies Act, it allowed itself with grand power that was misused. The government was banning the bank accounts of people who decided to support the protests left and right. Oftentimes without any regard as to what this might mean for the families of the people that were affected by these steps.

The government also started sanctioning any accounts or wallets that were connected to the protests, whether those were PayPal or Stripe accounts, or cryptocurrency wallets of Bitcoin, Ethereum or Cardano. All of these steps have clearly shown why financial privacy should not be underestimated.

Transaction censorship – based on the government or unfavorable leaders

Not only sanctioning, but transaction censorship as such can be easily imagined in the future, where governments have full control over any means of financial tools used for transactions and payments. One of the most worrying examples would be the use of CBDCs (Central bank digital currencies), which would not only allow the central banks to censor any transaction it wants to, but also see all the transaction history of its users.

Thanks to this, governments in combination with central banks could easily impose any emission targets of CO2 that people would have to follow, otherwise their transactions would either be declined or more costly. Or they could impose a limit for buying meat, sweets, gasoline, basically anything that the current government would deem negative.

In the society, where CBDCs become the only norm of payment, this would have incredibly terrible effects on the freedom of individuals. Any freedom of speech, choice or expression would automatically become unattainable as there would not be a freedom of transaction, one of the most important freedoms of all. That is one of the reasons why financial privacy needs to be protected, so that people can transact freely and let the open free market do its job without any regulation or government intervention.

Centralized point of failure

Hand in hand with all of this comes also the fact that central banks would be able to profile their citizens almost perfectly. This means that they would have huge data collection that could be misused, sold or lost due to hacks as it would have a centralized point of failure.

All of these bring more risks to the end users, which could be eliminated or at least diminished if financial privacy was taken as a human right and was not abused.  And one way to do that is start using privacy-oriented tools right now.

Whir helping with financial privacy

Whir is one of those tools that will enable its users to fight against any form of oppression, sanctions, censorship and many more. Thanks to the inherent characteristics of Bitcoin and the technology implemented and used by Whir, the users of these technologies can benefit from improved financial privacy that can be very helpful in the future. Spending Bitcoin privately would not be such a huge hurdle if needed, once these tools are used.

One can even argue that for some of the Canadian truckers, technologies like these were absolutely crucial for their freedom fight. And they might become just as detrimental to all the people around the world with the wake of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Financial privacy = Human right

While not many think about financial privacy as being key for survival, in the ever more digital age, the financial part of the lives of the individuals will become inherently more important. With the central banks all around the world trying to develop CBDCs, it may be the best time to start thinking about financial privacy tools that will enable its users to become self-sovereign, censorship-resistant and thus financially anonymous. Thanks to Bitcoin over Whir, anyone can achieve this.

Disclaimer: This article does not serve as a piece of financial advice or encouragement and inducement for the usage of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Its primary role is informative, explanatory, and educational. The readers have to decide themselves whether to use or not to use these types of services.