Bitcoin Forum

I believe that the blockchain breaks the privacy laws. Do you agree?

Why? 'Cause everybody store all tx? Or the keys?

I would disagree. It is known what exact information that is stored on the blockchain. Most privacy laws require that users should not be told that information will not be shared, but then the entity goes ahead and shares the information anyway.

What laws?

Who would be the victmins? The people that use blockchain, or all people because blockchain do no requires or warranty any way of identify the users?

I believe that nobody has the right to record the transactions of the people. It is illegal.

Every transaction recorded on the ledger is the result of somebody's sovereign decision to engage with the btc protocol
They are implicitly waiving any right to privacy (in that narrow sense), in my book anyway

What privacy laws are you even talking about?  That's the first question.

Most "privacy laws" only deal with certain information such as name, address, SS#, etc., stuff like that.  The fact that you're engaging in BTC transactions means you probably agree to have your "information" broadcasted on the blockchain.

The victims would be the people that send and receive bitcoin.

Most privacy laws would not apply because both the sender and receiver would know in advance that the blockchain is public information.

It is still illegal. It doesnt matter if you agree or disagree.

Transactions are just moving numbers from an address to another. No names or addresses disclosed, how does it violate privacy laws?

There is no anonymity on internet. If you have ip you have name and address.

^ This.  To send bitcoins, you literally publish a transaction.  It would be a bit like posting a picture on the Facebook and then claiming your privacy was breached by Facebook displaying the photo.

It's a completely different system at play here so I don't think we can apply those laws.

Plus, it's a voluntary act. Using Bitcoin that is.

This is the most important fact in the conversation. Since consumers voluntarily provided their transaction data to the blockchain (when they sent the TX), knowing that the information would be public they have no standing to sue over privacy laws.

I think this is true, I would say that you sacrifice your right to privacy by choosing to use BTC.   If you were forced to use BTC, then maybe you would have a case

Why? If you believe that, then post reasoning to explain yourself. I mean no offense, but a post like this with no explanation does no good. If you have  no idea, then word it as a question.

It is not possible to force someone to use bitcoin. Once you control an address, no one can force you to sign a TX that spends your coins.

It's called waiver and yes sometimes it does matter if you agree or disagree, as you put it.  In any case my first line still stands - you need to say what laws you think the blockchain violates.  "privacy laws" as you put it is not a law or something you can point to in court.

You need to set your priority right. I mean I still haven't found any faults. Can you specify it please?

If bitcointalk.org does not violate privacy laws by publishing your comments, the blockchain does not violate privacy laws by publishing your transaction.  :D

This actually is a very good point, and a good way of looking at it. When you broadcast a transaction you are publicly broadcasting your TX for anyone and everyone to see. 

Thanks! If you are really looking for privacy, there are so many other options for you to explore.

Bitcoin really does give you a sufficient amount of privacy for the "average joe" it is just that every transaction is public (this is the OP's concern). For most people, it is very difficult to link your identity to any specific transaction, and any one of your transactions to another one of your transactions (if you use change addresses properly).

Right I agree with this. Hey another option is using a new address with every transaction that way no one will link you to easily see all your transactions.

I believe you are right. You should sue bitcoin.
Also don't forget to sue the internet. It records not only transactions but practically everything you do online. What you see, what you hear, with whom you talk...

I agree. The whole internet is illegal. People must sue the engineers of the internet.

True. There are efforts one has to take to ensure that one's online identity is not revealed.
This is one of the first things that we learn while reading about bitcoin.

With paper, silver or gold money you can make a transaction and nobody will knows it. With digital money you can't do that. The digital money is like to live in a police state.

I don't agree, you need to explain your point way more and with actual details and even facts.  Also anybody can choose if they want to use Bitcoin nobody is forcing them against their will to use it.  

I think as long as the "average" user of bitcoin does not do things that are illegal nor reckless then there is little chance that his identity will be revealed as few people would have the interest to do so. Even though all of his transactions are public, there would be very few people that would want to dox one random person out of millions of people.

A transaction is something personal. You can't publish it. We are not living in a police state.

if you receive only, you aren't breaking any privacy, also you can do it with a smartphone i guess, so even if the localization of your transaction is displayed, you can just move away

With blockchain analytics companies being set up, I am not sure for how long this will remain true.

analytics would make it easier to link two addresses together, even if mixers are used, but this would not make it more profitable to dox someone who had used bitcoin.

If a hypothetical John Smith were to use coinbase to puchase bitcoin, send the bitcoin through a mixer for privacy and then purchased some household goods on overstock.com then it may be in theory to link his original coinbase purchase with his coinbase purchase, but since he not not broken any laws and the amount in question is very small, anyone who tries to link his identity to his used addresses would not gain anything from being successful.   

It would be easy for criminals to target people with large bitcoin holdings.
Currently, I doubt if it would be possible to get this kind of information from banks.

It would be very difficult to get a list of account holders with large balances from banks due to the BSA. It would also be very difficult to determine exactly who owns a particular address as well as who hold large amounts of BTC (in many multiple addresses). I would disagree that it would be easy for a criminal to target someone with a large BTC holding as it would be difficult to figure out who exactly is holding large amounts. The only exception to this would be people who are very well known in the BTC community.

What is your reason for making this opinion? i haven't problems with Blockchain , so i dissagree

I think that it's illegal and it's not fair that somebody has the right
to record the transactions, but it's also true that the sender and
buyer would know in advance that the blockchain is public information.

This is how bitcoin operates. One of it's selling points is that everything is transparent to everyone else. The fact that every transaction is recorded on the blockchain is how any and everyones "balance" is known and can be verified.

blockchain does not reveal your birthname, homeaddress or anything else. thus privacy is not violated.

secondly, by linking a bitcoin address to your forum username is not breach either, as your forum username is not your real life birth certified name

thirdly if you doxx yourself by revealing your details which can then be linked to the forum name and or the blockchain.. transactions. then this is your fault

Trying to play devils advocate......what if you were to trade with someone privately your identity would be linked to that transaction and both the change address and the sending address. Couldn't the person you traded with leak this information?

couldnt you do a credit card transaction and the merchant(other party) then release your personal details and your credit card number. should you blame the credit card company that has not publicly released personal data, or the merchant(other party).
the answer is that you would say the person you transacted with is in breach of privacy, not the credit card company

unless the credit card company or the blockchain themselves hold and release a persons name, address of a person. its not a breach of privacy.

everyone knows the blockchain its a public ledger, just like its expected that you cannot blame a bank over privacy if you choose to use the ATM balance/mini-statement, and then leave it on a public street. it contains no name/home address. if you or another party links a bank balance or transaction list to your name. then that party that has linked your name is to blame.

what do you mean ?

simply
the blockchain holds no personal data about you (the human being), and anyone that links the blockchain data to a human being is to blame for any privacy laws you wish to impose. not the blockchain itself

If you are wooried about GDPR or similar legislations I think blockchain can be extremely helpful. Personal data (pII) cannot be stored on the chain because general data protection  clearly calls for data erasure. Former CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operations must turn to CRAB(create, retrieve, append, burn). In order to be privacy  law compliant consent must be stored off chain and interact w blockchain via oracles. I personally think current GDPR rules are very heavy handed it only makes google and facebook even bigger monopolies.