The ambitious cryptocurrency project of Facebook, Libra immediately got surrounded by questions on privacy soon after it disclosed its plan to launch. The director of FinCEN, Kenneth Blanco, questioned about the potential usage of Libra in money laundering, criminal financing, and other unlawful activities. He asked about Libra while he was addressing the members of the United States House of Representatives, as per the press release surfaced on Thursday.
A brief meeting was held between Blanco, the head of FinCEN and representatives of the House of Financial service committee Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO), Bill Foster (D-IL), Trey Hollingsworth (R-IN) and French Hill. The meeting intended to discuss how machine learning and AI can stop the money laundering and other illegal activities.
Cleaver was particularly concerned about the yet to be launched a cryptocurrency of Facebook in his speech he said, with the progress of cryptocurrencies evil players are continuously finding new ways to involve in unlawful financial activities. And the big organization like Facebook who has failed to stop these evil players in acceptable level are involved in developing their cryptocurrency.
He further added before these giant corporations begin their transactions worth millions and billions, guardrails should be in place to stop the terrorist and extremists from hurting the nation.
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Although the press release does not talk about the opinions, Blanco has for the Libra or Calibra.
Calibra is a subsidiary of Facebook. It will provide a wallet facility to the user to circulate and use Libra. Calibra will be associated with both WhatsApp & Facebook Messenger.
Facebook is planning to introduce the whole system at the beginning of 2020.
Previously the Facebook executives were called to appear before the House Financial Services Commission of the US and were also asked to halt the project unless the project gets reviewed by the lawmakers and regulators.
Hearing on Libra project will take place next month by the full House of Financial committee. Not only US regulators but the regulators from across the world are investigating into the implication of the cryptocurrency.
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Although, some of the libra supporters believe that battle on consumer privacy and resistance from the regulators can create a hindrance in their path to attend the lofty goals.
