whgiii@amaranth.com ("William H. Geiger III") writes:

<sigh> Big Brother comming to a bank near you.

Does anyone understand the implications of a society moving to an electroinc cash based system??

All trasactions will be recorded, moitored, tracked & analysed. This is not just the government that one has to worry about but corporations also.

Actually the German system contains some fairly elaborate safeguards to make it pretty challenging to automatically track transactions (Germans have historical reasons for being uneasy about government monitoring). However given other German laws like the Fernmeldeanlagenueberwachungsverordnung (yes, that's one word), which make the CALEA look like a picnic, I'm not sure how long these safeguards will remain in place. Given that the standard has been created by a collaboration of all German banks, who are big enough to tell the government to take a hike if they demand access to the data, it may be safe (certainly the people involved in the project that I've spoken to are confident that they can keep the data private, however I'm not so sure how it'll work out in the long run). As for the Singapore solution, the Singpore government knows whats best for you, so it isn't any of your business to question their judgement. Anyone thinking otherwise gets 25 strokes of the rattan. Peter.