⚠️ HRF CBDC ⛓️🪙 alert from HRF for United Arab Emirates (27-MAR-2024)

🗝️ℹ️ (Key Information)

CBDC Status: Pilot

CBDC Launch: n/a

CBDC Model: n/a

CBDC Issued: n/a

Inflation Rate: 4.83%

One-Sentence Summary:

🇦🇪 is piloting its Central Bank Digital Currency (#CBDC) strategy, amidst concerns of human rights with potential for mass surveillance and seizure of finances.

✅ 🇦🇪's first phase in CBDC strategy includes a soft launch for cross-border transactions and proofs-of-concept with India and for domestic issuance.

✅ Starting in 2018, 🇦🇪's Central Bank collaborated with Saudi Central Bank in a CBDC pilot project, Project Aber, to assess the viability of issuing a wholesale CBDC for enhancing cross-border transactions.

✅ Project mBridge, a collaboration with the Bank for International Settlements initiated in 2021, aimed at addressing inefficiencies in cross-border payments while maintaining currency sovereignty. Its successful completion was announced in 2022.

✅ The CBDC strategy was launched in 2023 by Khaled Mohamed Balama, Governor of 🇦🇪's Central Bank, stating that CBDC would spur digitalization and foster financial inclusion.

✅ The first phase of this strategy would span over 12-15 months, conducted with companies G42 Cloud and R3.

✅ Despite these advancements, 🇦🇪 scored just 18/100 in Freedom House's 2023 Freedom report, with concerns tied to the CBDC launch being restrictions on free expression and mass surveillance.

✅ CBDCs, unfortunately, could be exploited as tools for freezing and seizing money of activists or political rivals, undermining their opposition.

✅ The advanced surveillance technologies already employed by 🇦🇪 could be further amplified by CBDCs, infringing on civil liberties by tracking financial records.

#HumanRights #FinancialFreedom #CBDC #DigitalCurrency #UAE

What are your thoughts on CBDCs and their potential impact on individual freedoms? Could there be ways to prevent the misuse of such technologies? Let's discuss!

Disclaimer: This is an AI-generated summary of the original text from HRF, forigve fuck-ups plox. If you find it useful, ⚡ the Tracker Bot because the AI and Cloud bits are not free to run.

Source of data: https://cbdctracker.hrf.org/home (npub1zhqcda52mrvcc0vkwegwsp5xtpk6l6x5kqx85f06tu9lw5h6xx0scch0dw)

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