The Privacy Dangers of a Cashless Society Were Clear Over 40 Years Ago

The Privacy Dangers of a Cashless Society Were Clear Over 40 Years Ago



Paul Armor of the Rand Corporation said this about a cashless society back in 1968:

Literally, it means a society without cash or checks. In this extreme,
all financial transactions, even the purchase of a newspaper, the
tipping of a doorman or passing through a highway toll station, would
take place via some mechanism not involving a check or cash.

He was concerned about computers destroying privacy:

The first is that computer technology is introducing order-of-magnitude
reductions in the cost of collecting, transmitting, and processing
information. Second, centralization of data is usually a concomitant of
computer use. The payoff to successful snooping is much greater when all
the facts are stored in one place. Though most of the data to complete a
dossier on every citizen already exists in the hands of the government
today, it is normally so dispersed that the cost of collecting it and
assembling it would be very high. The third factor is that computer
systems with remote terminals can permit, unless proper safeguards are
provided, remote browsing through the data with a great deal of
anonymity.

Armor hoped the USA would develop within the Department of Defense a program or subgroup to prevent attacks on privacy. Since the Department of Defense is now up to its eyeballs in the invasion of privacy, this goal of protecting privacy seems unattainable. 


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