TV column "World without money": Cashless shopping by facial recognition

A "Zasterlaster" curved across the Swabian Alb. The small truck is the mobile branch of Heidenheimer Volksbank. The bank has closed many branches in the country. Now the car stops at marked parking lots to pay cash. Beyond the cities, citizens swear by real money rather than credit cards. A customer says, "I do not trust the machine, I do not like it." But the money is expensive.A bank employee calculates that in the basement two employees are busy managing the bills.This makes staff costs of 100,000 euros per year plus the costs of electricity, gas and the rental of the room.The employee of the bank says: "The money is an expensive and expensive product. " It's a side.

Glbad Glbad, Glbad Citizen

On the other hand, 80% of all payments are now cashless. Money without money is up because it is fast, easy and convenient. Behind them, all kinds of interests: politicians want to abolish money to limit crime and terrorism. Even black money and the underground economy are easier to fight with digital money. Central bankers are against money because negative rates can be easily applied. And digital payment companies such as Paypal or Visa would like to give up cash because they will then benefit more from our monetary transactions by collecting even more financial data on consumers. Although Paypal states that no second company would get this kind of data. Indeed, the general conditions are accompanied by 40 pages with the names of service providers who have just obtained data

The price of data

The documentary "World Without Money" by Hanspeter Michel penetrates the keyboards of the global anti-cash lobby. One of them is the "Better than Cash Alliance" in New York, which is backed by companies such as Visa or Mastercard as well as H & M, Unilever and Gap. The goal: The more people are integrated into the international financial system, the more growth and jobs are created by the companies involved. Because: Thanks to the cost and access to immeasurable data resources, payment companies themselves benefit first and foremost because sometimes search engine data and purchasing data are combined with each other. which gives a very precise three-dimensional profile. 19659005] But states are also using new opportunities via payment data to learn more about its citizens. For example, starting in 2020, citizen surveillance in China will be complete and complete. Each purchase is then registered and the state can evaluate each Chinese in his favor and divide them into good and bad citizens. On the track remains the interest of citizens in cash but also in democratic states. Many people in Germany still value money as a store of value and consider it a piece of freedom because it operates independently of the interests of third parties.

Shopping by Face

The imminent future without cash has scary features. In the United States, there is already an Amazon branch, where everything without money – even without a cashier and without cash – is managed. At the entrance, the customer records by mobile phone. The products that he withdraws from the shelf are badigned to him by facial recognition and appears on the phone after leaving the store the amount that is automatically deducted from his account. And even in Sweden today, there is almost nothing left without a credit card. Even at the flea market. A woman says, "I hate money, I throw it sometimes in the trash because I do not know where to put it."

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