On July 16, David Marcus, CEO of Facebook’s proposed currency project, Libra, told members of the U.S. Senate convened in a hearing that he expected the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) to regulate financial privacy on Libra.
The non-profit Libra Association is headquartered in Geneva and registered in Switzerland, where regulations are said to favour crypto-style ventures and the “non-profits” created to govern or legitimize them.
But according to Reuters, the (FDPIC) says it had not heard from Facebook prior to the hearings, and sent a letter to the company July 17th enquiring about the project.
According to the outlet:
“Among other things, the Swiss data privacy authority said it was expecting Libra to conduct an impact assessment of data protection risks associated with the cryptocurrency, evaluate risks and propose measures to minimize them.”
Given Facebook’s awful track record (Facebook was fined $5 billion USD Wednesday for “losing control of massive troves of user data”), data privacy was one of several major concerns brought up by several senators in the hearings with Marcus.
But according to the FDPIC:
“The FDPIC stated in its letter that as it had not received any indication on what personal data may be processed, the Libra Association should inform it of the current status of the project so that the FDPIC could assess the extent to which its advisory competences and supervisory powers would apply…The FDPIC is currently waiting for the Libra Association to respond to (its) letter of 17 July 2019 and set out their official position.”
Marcus also told the US senators that the Libra Association has been in talks with the Swiss Financial Markets Supervisory Authority regarding, “an appropriate regulatory framework.”