The Libra project raises privacy issues.
The Libra project raises privacy issues.
The US Senate announced on Wednesday that they will hold a hearing next month where they ask a number of witness questions about Facebook's new venture with cryptocurrency, Libra - more on the initiative itself, you can read here.
So far unknown witnesses
The hearing goes under the title "Examining Facebook's Proposed Digital Currency and Data Privacy Considerations" and is set to July 16. What is perhaps most interesting to know is which witnesses the Senate has sued for the hearing, but this information is unfortunately not public yet.
The consultation notice comes shortly after Facebook officially announced its new ecosystem for and blockade and cryptocurrency, which quickly attracted a lot of attention and particularly negative criticism from law enforcement authorities for potential risks to consumers.
- Too much power
Among the first critics was Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown who questioned Facebook's new service, pointing out that Facebook is already too big and with too much power that they used to exploit people's data without protecting their privacy.
"We can't allow Facebook to keep up with risky cryptocurrency from a Swiss bank without supervision," Brown said yesterday.
There seems to be a broad consensus among both Democratic and Republican members in the Senate that one should keep a kind of overview of what extensions Facebook is doing in this context.
Facebook ready to answer questions
A spokesperson from Facebook has responded to the criticism from the Senate's members, where the person in question states that the company is looking forward to answering questions lawmakers may have in the process moving forward. However, they made it clear that they did not want to put the project on hold, as requested by US government representatives.