A digital euro would give users as much privacy as current technology allows, a European Central Bank executive board member has said, in the bank’s sharpest answer yet to the charge that a central bank digital currency would let Frankfurt watch how Europeans spend.
Piero Cipollone made the claim in an interview with Italian outlet ilsussidiario.net, conducted on August 10 and published by the ECB on Monday
Asked whether the bank could monitor payment habits and track how each citizen uses the currency, he said offline payments would run directly between individuals, with the details available only to the payer and the payee. Online, he said, the Eurosystem would not be able to identify the people making or receiving payments. Only the banks involved in a transaction could do that, including for anti-money laundering purposes. “The digital euro guarantees the maximum level of privacy that current technology can offer,” Cipollone said.
Payments would still be visible to the commercial banks distributing the currency, which would keep the identity and reporting obligations they carry today. Privacy features are built in but do not exempt the currency from the rules applying to all money, an ECB spokesperson told Decrypt in December. The European Parliament agreed its negotiating position on the regulation in July, and talks with member states are targeting a deal by the end of 2026.