Private Money in a Public World

In an more and more related world, privateness has grow to be one of many defining problems with our time. Almost each digital interplay—each search, message, location ping, and buy—leaves behind a path. These knowledge 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 isn’t just a private desire, however a elementary human proper.

Monetary Surveillance With out Consent

Monetary privateness is very susceptible. While you make a purchase order with a debit card, ship cash to a good friend, or obtain cost in your work, your knowledge—who paid whom, when, the place, and the way a lot—isn’t just 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 non-public companies, authorities entities, and knowledge brokers. The result’s a monetary surveillance system that most individuals by no means opted into. 

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

Your Instruments Work for You?

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

Each time you utilize {hardware} or software program related to the web, together with private knowledge, you leak metadata—time, location, system sort, and extra. Over time, this knowledge varieties patterns that may be analyzed to foretell or infer particulars about your persona and life. 

Avoiding all metadata leakage is nearly unimaginable until you choose out of the digital world totally. However you may take steps to reduce it. Step one is knowing the privateness implications of the instruments you utilize—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 financial system with out giving up their privateness. We imagine non-public cash issues—not as a result of folks have one thing to cover, however as a result of they deserve the precise to decide on what they reveal about their lives and to whom. We additionally imagine in educating our customers to the most effective of our small crew’s potential. However irrespective of how arduous we attempt, we will’t anticipate or get rid of each danger. All we will do is determine, 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 depends upon how software program is constructed, how gadgets are used, and what tradeoffs individuals are prepared to make. In different phrases: privateness isn’t nearly cryptography—it’s about person expertise, training, and danger modeling.

Zashi & World

To assist customers perceive the context wherein 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 Threat Mannequin—a dwelling doc that can define potential privateness dangers related to utilizing the app.  

This doc can by no means be full. It should evolve with the know-how and our customers. As at all times, we’ll invite our group to assist us enhance it. Should you discover habits in Zashi that appears suspicious or unclear, please tell us, so we will deal with it.

Staying the Course

We’re happy with what Zashi has completed in its first yr. We’ve made shielded ZEC simpler to make use of, safer to retailer, and extra accessible to folks around the globe. 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 all the things is tracked, non-public cash is likely to be one of many final frontiers of private freedom. 

Thanks for strolling this path with us.

 Onward.

App Retailer, Google Play, F-Droid, GitHub