Private Money in a Public World

In an more and more related world, privateness has turn into one of many defining problems with our time. Practically each digital interplay—each search, message, location ping, and buy—leaves behind a path. These information trails are sometimes harvested, bought, or exploited with out our information or significant consent. This actuality has created a rising sense of unease for people who imagine privateness is not only a private choice, however a elementary human proper.

Monetary Surveillance With out Consent

Monetary privateness is particularly weak. While you make a purchase order with a debit card, ship cash to a buddy, or obtain cost in your work, your information—who paid whom, when, the place, and the way a lot—is not only collected by quite a few faceless organizations. It’s completely saved and linked to your id. More and more, it’s aggregated and analyzed by personal firms, authorities entities, and information brokers. The result’s a monetary surveillance system that most individuals by no means opted into. 

Your transactions turn into a file of your habits, your selections, your vulnerabilities, and your values. Over time, these data can be utilized to foretell and manipulate your conduct and management particular person and collective freedoms.

Your Instruments Work for You?

Private information is now one of many world’s most useful commodities. Within the multi-billion greenback information economic system, the whole lot about your on-line expertise is designed to extract as a lot information about you as attainable with little regard in your proper to privateness. 

Each time you employ {hardware} or software program related to the web, together with private information, you leak metadata—time, location, gadget kind, and extra. Over time, this information kinds patterns that may be analyzed to foretell or infer particulars about your character and life. 

Avoiding all metadata leakage is just about inconceivable except you choose out of the digital world fully. However you possibly can take steps to reduce it. Step one is knowing the privateness implications of the instruments you employ—out of your cellphone’s working system to the apps you put in.

Opting Out 

At ECC, we imagine people ought to have the choice to take part within the digital economic system with out giving up their privateness. We imagine personal cash issues—not as a result of individuals have one thing to cover, however as a result of they deserve the proper to decide on what they reveal about their lives and to whom. We additionally imagine in educating our customers to the perfect of our small staff’s skill. However regardless of how onerous we attempt, we will’t anticipate or remove each danger. All we will do is establish, talk, and resolve dangers as they come up.

Zashi pockets is constructed on Zcash, a blockchain and a cryptocurrency that supply unmatched monetary privateness. However we additionally acknowledge that privateness doesn’t start and finish with a protocol. It will depend on how software program is constructed, how units are used, and what tradeoffs persons are prepared to make. In different phrases: privateness isn’t nearly cryptography—it’s about consumer expertise, training, and danger modeling.

Zashi & World

To assist customers perceive the context by which our Zashi pockets operates, and the way that context can have an effect on their monetary privateness, we’re at the moment engaged on the Zashi Danger Mannequin—a residing doc that may define potential privateness dangers related to utilizing the app.  

This doc can by no means be full. It should evolve with the expertise and our customers. As at all times, we are going to invite our group to assist us enhance it. In case you discover conduct in Zashi that appears suspicious or unclear, please tell us, so we will tackle it.

Staying the Course

We’re pleased with what Zashi has achieved in its first 12 months. We’ve made shielded ZEC simpler to make use of, safer to retailer, and extra accessible to individuals world wide. However we all know there’s extra to do. We stay dedicated to constructing software program that empowers customers to take management of their monetary lives with out sacrificing autonomy or exposing themselves to pointless danger.

Within the digital age, privateness isn’t a luxurious—it’s a necessity. And in a world the place nearly the whole lot is tracked, personal cash is likely to be one of many final frontiers of non-public freedom. 

Thanks for strolling this path with us.

 Onward.

App Retailer, Google Play, F-Droid, GitHub