> Financial data can reveal uncomfortable information about a consumer’s preferences and habits; our finances give a window into our lives. Any US CBDC should p

> Financial data can reveal uncomfortable information about a consumer’s preferences and habits; our finances give a window into our lives. Any US CBDC should prioritize user privacy and data protection. In addition, collecting and storing personally identifying user data at all makes it vulnerable to accidental leaks or malicious hacking attempts, so the design of a US CBDC should strive to minimize data collection to only what is critically necessary to safely process transactions. > A CBDC which is in some part run by the central bank does not necessarily require the central bank to have visibility into fine-grained transaction data. Legitimate public policy goals relating to combating criminal activity can be fulfilled while preserving the privacy of the public and preventing a central bank being drawn into the commercial surveillance models which are now prevalent in the private sector. It sounds like they're prioritizing a system that uses cryptography to ensure a zero-trust and plausible deniability environment similar to cash. For the US, I think this is the right path for their government. They need to be able to easily transfer monetary assets to foreign agents or governments without anyone snooping in on them. Even the possibility of a back door would mean that one of their enemies could see where resources are being allocated internationally, which would be a vulnerability. This would also promote use of the currency among others in low trust environments, which is part of why the US dollar has such significant international hegemony in comparison to something like the Yuan/Digital Yuan. No third world government wants to be in the position where the Chinese can see how they're spending their funds and immediately freeze them based on this oversight.