Snippings

I”m very wary of promulgating the “political correctness gone mad” meme, as it is so often a lazy reactionary knee-jerk response to changing times, but I could not resist tweeting about the news that a British police force launched an investigation after a man claimed he had been the victim of a “hate crime” when… a branch of the Post Office refused to accept his Scottish banknote. This incident has now indeed entered our official statistics as a hate crime.

Frankly, this is mental. Scottish banknotes are not legal tender, even in Scotland, as I have explained before. The Post Office is no more obliged to accept a Scottish Fiver than it is to accept Euros, gold or cowrie shells. The story did, however, cause me to reflect on what will happen when, post-Brexit, Scotland votes to leave the UK. Will Scotland then join the euro or create its own currency?

As supporters of Scottish independence insist, once Scotland becomes an independent country, it will be responsible for managing its currency in the same way that every other country that has its own currency is responsible for managing. But how should the Scots go about creating this currency? Surely messing around with notes and coins, other than for post-functional symbolic purposes, is a total waste of time and money.

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“A young woman sits at a bar on Bourbon Street in New Orleans and orders a beer. The bartender asks for identification. The bar patron pulls out her phone, clicks on an app, and displays a digital version of her driver’s license showing she is over 21. In response, the bartender pulls out her own phone, clicks on the same app, uses it to scan the woman’s digital license, and verifies that her information is legit.”

From “Louisiana Adopts Digital Driver’s Licenses – IEEE Spectrum”.

I was beyond excited to discover than Louisiana is implementing a version of the “psychic ID” that I set out back in 2005!

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“Google CEO Sundar Pichai… expressed support for a national data protection law in the US, describing the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation as a ‘well-thought-out, well-crafted piece of legislation.’”

From “What Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s visit to Congress taught us (spoiler: not a lot) – MIT Technology Review”.

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“The first batch of Hongkongers picked up their new smart identity cards from kiosks and collection centres around the city on Monday. The new cards, complete with updated security details such as built-in radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and higher resolution photographs to support facial recognition, will replace the standard Hong Kong identification card, required of all residents.”

From “First Hongkongers collect new smart ID cards with replacement roll-out to start soon | South China Morning Post”.

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What does clean tainted bitcoin is the FBI. They did this when they auctioned off the Silk Road wallets.

From The battle over financial privacy – New Money Review.

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Spanish banks have warned of the potential financial stability implications of Big Tech firms like Goolge, Amazon and Facebook entering the financial services industry. Red flags around the future roles of Big Tech firms in financial services were raised at an event organised by the University of Financial Studies (Cunef) in Madrid and the Spanish Banking Association.

Regulatory issues topped the agenda, with access to financial data expected to play a key role in the coming battle between Big Tech firms and banks. The introduction of PSD2 and the move to Open Banking is expected to upset the competitive advantage enjoyed by banks, with Big Tech firms ready to benefit from asymmetric regulation and extend their appeal to consumers.

From Spanish banks rail against Big Tech threat.

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“‘Over the last five years, the replacement cycles of smartphones in the U.S. has has increased from an average of 20.6 to 24.1 months,’ says Jennifer Chan, global insight director at Kantar.”

From “Global, U.S. Growth in Smartphone Growth Starts to Decline”.

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“Thieves are increasingly trying to smash or blast their way into UK cash machines – with the number of attacks on ATMs nearly doubling in four years. Attempts to steal cash have risen from 400 attacks in 2014 to 723 last year,”

From “Surge in gas and ram-raid ATM attacks – BBC News”.

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The introduction of electronic identity cards would address many voters’ concerns about immigration without the need for Brexit, a report from Global Future has found.

From ID cards not Brexit ‘better at controlling immigration’ | The Week UK.

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In addition to cryptocurreny custody solutions (for which, as stated elsewhere in the article, there is no demand whatsoever), State Street is also looking to a future markeplace of “tokenised” traditional assets.

From State Street studying custody for both tokenized traditional assets and cryptocurrencies, but sees no current client demand – The Block.

Why would anyone bother with