We know very well that if trends continue, we will have no privacy left.
Moving towards a cashless society means every purchase we make can and will be tracked, analyzed and stored. Driverless cars will insure – if ALPRs and facial surveillance haven’t already – that we won’t be able to go anywhere without our origins, routes and destinations tracked. The “Internet of Things” ultimately will ensure that every device we interact with will record our use of it. Computers that respond to our verbal commands could be recording everything we say. It is not even beyond the realm of foreseeable technological possibility that our very thoughts could be analyzed.
The technological and political forces that drive these weapons of mass privacy destruction forward seem overwhelming. What, indeed, can anyone do about it when both governments and the biggest companies on the planet desire, nay, demand information?
If only we could establish a real human right to privacy, guaranteed by constitution, law and societal expectation. Alas, we are far from anything close to that.
Nonetheless we fight, one arena and one battle at a time.
One such arena, small as it may be, is the fight against a ban on cash. Beyond important issues of social justice and equity, privacy demands that, at our option, our every transaction not be recorded: that we can decline to leave records to be analyzed by agents of the state for subversion, or agents of mega-corporations for fine-combed ad targeting, or agents of our health insurance company critiquing our fast-food and donut-rich eating habits.
In the Spring of 2019 San Francisco passed an ordinance requiring merchants accept cash for payment. Neither the Bay’s nor the world’s economic system has collapsed. A few other towns around the country and the entire state of New Jersey have similar laws.
It is time to adopt such a law in more locales, ultimately statewide, and nationally. After all, “legal tender for all debts, public and private” should actually mean something.
Berkeley is now considering such an ordinance, and Oakland Privacy has written in support. Oakland and other Bay Area cities could easily pass this ordinance as well. The time is now, before cashless stores become ubiquitous.
One small step for privacy. C.f.: A journey of a thousand miles…