French Town Tests Cashless Society

SamiousHaze writes to mention a Silicon.com article about an attempt in a French tourist town, Caen, to do away with cash in some locales. From the article: "Among [the locations in the trial] is an underground car park; the town hall; a bus stop which can transmit timetable information; a cinema poster which downloads video trailers to users' mobiles; a local supermarket, where people can pay for their groceries with a mobile phone, and a tourist information sign outside the historic Abbaye des Hommes. By touching the mobile against the 'Flytag' logo at each of these locations, users can pay for services or receive information straight to their phone."

Comments

silly me

[nEoN nOoDlE]

When I read the article, I immediately thought that the town was going back to a bartering system.

Re:Loss of privacy

[Xiroth]

This would definitely create a niche for banks which specialise in short-lifespan Swiss-style anonymous accounts that are easy to create and allow easy transfer of control (by giving a card or something). Unfortunately that anonymity could be legislated out of existance by government regulation for security purposes, so you'd need the banks to be in nations with a good track record of allowing privacy.

Re:Loss of privacy

[TheRaven64]

Do you actually use cash in this day and age? About the only time I use cash is when I am buying a sandwich or a coffee at lunch time, or when I am getting a drink in a pub and cards charge too much per transaction for it to be available (why credit cards have a minimum commission I will never understand. It surely can't cost them much to move a small number from one location to another, and those 50p transactions add up to large numbers very quickly).

For private payments I always use direct bank transfers; that way I have a record that I've already paid, and it's less effort since I can do it anywhere I have an Internet connection, while cash requires me to find a cash machine.

Been and done

[jd]

I think it was Swindon, in the UK, that tried the Mondo cashless card over a decade ago. The card actually held the electronic cash, so that absolutely nothing went to or from any kind of central database. This had the massive advantage that it was extremely private. It had better privacy than cash, as there were no serial numbers or denominations involved. The cards used public key encryption and although I believe they never used long keys due to problems in generation, they were quite capable of handling keys equal to the strongest PGP/GnuPG can support today.

To me, this is the kind of electronic cash that should be the future. Total privacy, total anonymity, total freedom to use your own money as and how you like, absolute security against identity theft through reckless banks or merchants, hard limits to card misuse if stolen (and none of it attributable to you), relatively proof against electronic attacks such as keystroke monitors and viruses.

So why aren't these cards in widespread use? Merchants don't like extra card readers if no customers have the cards. Customers don't want cards they can't use. Neither like systems where most faults can be pinned on them and not the vendor. Banks hate systems that keep cash in the hands of consumers, as they make a lot of money speculating on the side (even in countries they're not strictly allowed to, they just do it overseas). Governments hate it because they can't track individuals and freezing accounts has less impact when you can carry a small fortune in your wallet.

The problem, then, is social and not technical. The French experiment uses inferior technology, for the purpose of satisfying some of the social requirements at the cost of placing all parties at greater risk.

(For some reason, humanity has all the attributes commonly associated with lemmings, when it comes to technology and risk. Given the choice of inferior products with greater risk, or superior products with little or no risk, societies always choose the inferior path.)

Re:Yeah but what happens in case of a blackout?

[powerlord]

Oddly enough, if the power is out, having cash may, or may not, help you.

I was in New York City during the blackout a few years ago. I had cash, on the other hand there wasn't much you could do with it.
Some restaurants were open, but most were closed (no workers, no lights, no ability to ring up registers).
The major stores (supermarkets and the like) were closed. No registers, no lights, no refridgeration.

Good luck finding a taxi ... the streets were crowded and the traffic lights were out as well, but I suppose you could go somewhere by taxi.

All in all, the only store I know of that was open and doing business was the local hardware store, and the only thing they were selling was batteries.

Face it, our society has already become so dependant on electricity that in a lot of cases, if the power is out, having money may not help, there might be bigger issues to worry about.