In many ways, the internet, which was originally seen as a tool of expression has also come with the vulnerability of being a perfect outlet for surveillance. Our online, mobile, and electronic communications are under constant surveillance from institutions with vested interest in collecting an assortment of important political, personal, and economic data. Surveillance of bitcoin promises a vast amount of economic data and with it, the possibility of tracking spending patterns which leads to gathering political and personal data as well. Could it be that technologies such as bitcoin, which initially allows greater individual freedom, will be subverted by institutions of power into a twisted form of panopticon?
Privacy is a non-negotiable human right. It is important to identify matters of national security, but having the right to privacy is more valuable than destroying both privacy and the potential to do harm for the false promise of ‘security’. We are a community floating on a mote of dust somewhere in the universe. No one can promise you security. I would even go as far to say anonymity is a human right as well, because at the moment we come into this world we have no identity attached to us but the sole characteristic of being human.
The difference in determining if your spending is anonymous is where your real-world identity is not linked to the wallet address. If it is linked, any transaction you make can be followed through the blockchain and your spending habits can be monitored, a most opportunistic scenario for surveillance purposes.
The fact that bitcoin is digital is precisely why it will lead to an increase in surveillance of payments. Although the bitcoin public ledger of transactions carries with it the potential to be used anonymously, most people do not and will not use it this way. In truth, it is very trivial to destroy the anonymity of your bitcoin wallet into a fully translucent view of your financial life projected to whoever cares enough to know.
If bitcoin is adopted by a more mainstream audience, and if not used in conjunction with some third party service, people’s spending habits will be as hidden as their social media activity or browsing history is today. The idea remains that the concept of the blockchain ledger itself is neither good nor evil for privacy, but the actions the user takes to preserve anonymity and withhold sensitive data will determine the utility they receive while using it.
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