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The technology behind Aadhaar is proprietary, non-modular, and mandates the collection and processing of biometric data for identification and identification purposes, namely fingerprints, iris scans and facial scans.

From ID systems analysed: Aadhaar | Privacy International.

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This problem can be traced to the decision by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to introduce biometric refugee registration in the mid-2000s.

From When ID leaves you without identity: the case of double registration in Kenya | Privacy International.

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Decentralized countries may supersede nations. The most influential civilization-scale entities will exist entirely online, a consequence of digital lives becoming more valuable than physical ones. “Decentralized countries” will coordinate and govern our virtual terrain.  ‍
Our sense of identity will be altered by these changes. Today, humans have a mostly monogamous relationship to nations — try and profess allegiance to more than one and things get complicated. In the future, we may be “promiscuous nationalists,” moving between digital states depending on circumstance.

From The Decentralized Country | The Generalist.

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Could a great struggle for digital democracy against the Chinese surveillance state and Silicon Valley surveillance capitalism really form the foundation for a social movement supporting national renewal?

From Can Big Tech Serve Democracy? – Boston Review.

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Taiwan has also built a rapid response system to disinformation attacks, which occur more frequently there than they do in any other country in the world (according to some observers, because of its proximity and importance to China). Some experts believe that this has helped dampen the deep polarization along ethno-political lines related to time of migration to the island and feelings toward the mainland. Taiwan also managed arguably the best COVID-19 response on the planet, balancing the strongest economic growth in Asia in 2020 with the world’s lowest per capita death rate among countries with reliable data.

From Can Big Tech Serve Democracy? – Boston Review.

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Banking-as-a-service (BaaS) is hardly a new endeavour for Starling, Raisin DS became its first commercial client all the way back in 2018, and the bank even won a UK government contract to provide payment services for the Department for Work and Pensions.

Starling now counts 30 clients of its BaaS offering, up from 25 in September, including SumUp, CurrencyCloud, Moneybox and, most recently, Standard Chartered.

Indeed this November, Standard Chartered announced Shoal, a new ‘flanker’ brand launching in 2022 for consumers to invest in green and sustainable projects, and with accounts powered by Starling Bank.

From Exclusive: Starling Bank plans to take its banking-as-a-service offering global – AltFi.

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Our audit exercise focused on three relatively uncontroversial tenets of consumer protection: customers should have access to pricing information, pricing information should be correct, and prices should comply with government regulations. We found opportunities for improvement in each of these areas.

From How Can We Deepen Transparency in Nigeria’s Digital Financial Services? | Innovations for Poverty Action:

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Benoît Cœuré, chief of the Bank for International Settlements’ innovation hub

“You need central bank money as a safe asset that can be used as a settlement asset to make the new system stable . . . It’s not about CBDC being the sovereign alternative to private money, it’s more about CBDC being the glue that will hold the system together.”

From Benoît Cœuré says regulators likely to agree crypto framework in 2022 | Financial Times.

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Benoît Cœuré, chief of the Bank for International Settlements’ innovation hub

Cœuré said the Financial Stability Board, a global grouping of finance ministries and regulators hosted by BIS, would be the most natural forum to agree a consistent framework and that it was possible for them to do it in 2022,

From Benoît Cœuré says regulators likely to agree crypto framework in 2022 | Financial Times.

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Blockchain technology is central to the development of the metaverse and Web 3, Goldman Sachs said in a research report.

It is the only technology that can “uniquely identify any virtual object independent of a central authority,” and this ability to identify and track ownership will be crucial to the functioning of the metaverse, analysts led by Rod Hall wrote in a note published on Dec. 14.

From Goldman Sachs Says Blockchain Is Key to Metaverse and Web 3 Development.

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