According to Facebook, the star sign Libra encompasses freedom, justice and money, but they’re not the vibes surrounding the social media giant’s unveiling of its Libra cryptocurrency.
Anything but in fact. Much to Facebook’s chagrin, its ambitious plans on for its new global cryptocurrency have raised alarm bells, especially in relation to privacy.
Facebook has linked with 28 partners, including Mastercard, PayPal and Uber to form the Libra Association, a Geneva-based entity governing the new digital coin.
Facebook has also created Calibra, which will offer digital wallets to save, send and spend Libras and be connected to Facebook messaging platforms Messenger and WhatsApp. The system is scheduled to launch in the first half of 2020.
Privacy advocates say they’re concerned that Libra will allow Facebook to collect millions more data, but Facebook says the system will only share customer data if it has consent, or in what it called “limited cases”.
Cryptocurrency investors have also lost hundreds of millions of dollars through steep price drops and crypto-exchange hacks and the market has faced money-laundering and terrorist-financing allegations.
