As much as the tracking I fear the access control.

Made some stupid comment online while being drunk? We take your ability to by transportation passes/plane tickets...

IIRC this is already happening in China.

No-fly lists don't require instant payments, so I don't know what point it is you're trying to make.

You can still use a train.

Not in china though:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/1/18246297/china-transportat...

I've read that is wrong, depending on what you define as (usable) train.

Allegedly there are the 'green' trains, because using older green wagons.

They aren't high-speed, but drive everywhere. As do busses. Which allegedly you can use. Just takes longer.

Can you provide an example?

Exactly as parent mentioned - in China, if you mess with Party or they just deem you undesirable for whatever reason ie ethnicity, you can't purchase plane tickets, not even domestic ones. Heck, not even trains so you can't effectively travel within China. No mortgages/loans. Of course it will affect your hiring options badly. I believe it goes way deeper. China is already 1984 for a decade+

So almost like when you have a felony record in the USA?

What impact does this actually have? Can you not get a credit card any more?

You are excluded from most decent jobs and relegated to an underclass.

you can't travel even domestically? or get a credit card?

That's not an example, I want a specific example

Or Canada during the trucker protests.

More scary IMO because the US / Europe will never be China, but it's easy to see some president in the US logic their way into the same position as Canada, and use the same state apparatuses to banish dissenters.

I don’t see an issue. The government already knows how much I earn, where I live, etc.

Many people wouldn’t see an issue until they’re either personally affected or are the kind to look at privacy and freedoms deeply.

The question for you is whether the government has a need or the right to know every penny (or whatever fractional currency you can legally use) that you move around. This shouldn’t be confused with the government having a need to know about incomes and/or wealth for taxation purposes. Sales or consumption taxes collected by sellers don’t typically care who exactly pays it or what the mode of payment is.

Trusting a nebulous entity like a government to track every expense and every money transfer would be draconian, and would be understandable only in dictatorships and authoritarian regimes (and the ones very close to becoming one).

> The question for you is whether the government has a need or the right to know every penny (or whatever fractional currency you can legally use) that you move around.

First, there is nothing like the government in Europe.

Secondly, the organisms that are tracking as extensively as possible European citizen are mostly private firms (whose parent companies are typically not European). European directives like GPDR are on the contrary rather shielding European citizen privacy if anything.

I doubt this proposition is forcing to withdraw cash within euro zone. Citizen are free to continue to use cash or not at there discretion.

> First, there is nothing like the government in Europe.

technically no... but in practice, yes.

EU decides something, and local governments must implement the EU-wide changes into local laws.

If EU decides to do something, they do it... the states are not as sovereign as it might seem.

I mean... look at EU banning RT (dot com) - https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022...

EU decided to identify payers of bills (or bank transfers) above 1000eur, and every country had to pass the law ( https://www.eumonitor.eu/9353000/1/j4nvk6yhcbpeywk_j9vvik7m1... )

So yeah... EU is "the government", there's just one step in between.

>EU decides something, and local governments must implement the EU-wide changes into local laws.

The thing is, "EU decides" hides all the complexity of the reality. First of all, "Europe Union" can refer to many things. Here, most likely the sentence refers to the European Parliament. European Commission, European Council, euro area are three other distinct notions for example that can be easily confused with EU.

>the states are not as sovereign as it might seem.

They prioritize their sovereign decision power on staying unified above local punctual interests… or not, as the Brexit showed. States, so far, remain sovereign, even if they accept to bow before collegial decisions in which they themselves participate.

European Council is the institution that is generally presented as "the government".

Oh, you bought booze and chocolates yesterday? You're getting fat and drunk, your health insurance just went up.

Oh, you made an inapropriate comment on twitter... no more concerts and movie tickets for you.

As said by someone else below, china has a similar system in place, where chinese people with low social scores cannot buy public transportation tickets.

And I also don't think the government needs to know you went to a buttplug store and bought an XXXL buttplug there. (especially if you're a guy, unmarried, and the government is anti lgbt oriented).

> Oh, you bought booze and chocolates yesterday? You're getting fat and drunk, your health insurance just went up.

In the area where this instant payment system will go up, health insurance is universal and government regulated as well :)

In this context, “universal and government regulated” also means “inescapable and absolute”.

Your health insurance might not go up, but you could find procedures being denied if, based on your purchases and behavior, the cost would be a poor investment for society and the state.

In most EU countries offering a Universal healthcare insurance, you have still a private market of insurances for services/products not covered by the government insurance (i.e. glasses, dental, cosmetics, etc.)

If you get denied of a procedures because of previous purchases and behaviour that the government insurance does not want to cover; the private sector will be happy to serve you.

So pay the insurance... and then pay full procedure price?

> In the area where this instant payment system will go up, health insurance is universal and government regulated as well :)

Except the Eu is slowly privatizing its healthcare with the pressure from the US.

It's not like I've been keeping the fact that I'm fat and drunk a secret from anyone.

I’m confused, we are talking about a standard, procedure and requirements of instant payments which are ultimately handled by the banks. The government is simply issuing a consumer benefits requirements which the banks are obligated to follow. Where does government tracking fit into this? In fact the bank tracking should remain the same.

Why are you so afraid of the government tracking you, when the tracker in this case is most likely from the private industry (unless you bank with a national bank, in which case you’re probably dealing with both).

> Oh, you bought booze and chocolates yesterday? You're getting fat and drunk, your health insurance just went up

I mean, you’re exaggerating. But yes, I’d like obese people to pay more for insurance. Also, if government thinks booze is bad it shouldn’t sell it.

> As said by someone else below, china has a similar system in place

Anecdotally, I asked about this a Chinese friend I studied with in Europe. She said “Social credit? What’s that?” It’s not that she can’t read, she’s on Instagram and WhatsApp.

> The government already knows how much I earn, where I live, etc.

There is no reason to allow them to know more, but there are very good reasons to let them only know what they really need to know.

No, it is going from "being tracked by <website>, Stripe, their analytics partners, the bank, mastercard/visa, the NSA, [...]" to being tracked by the website and the banks. EU banks already have the infrastructure for instant payments, so this should be a non brainer

I don't see why transactions that use cash today, wont use cash tomorrow

Not tracked: just trackable.

So... tracked

Apple Pay is very much ahead of the game here...