ECB Promises a Digital Euro with Maximum Privacy Level

Piero Cipollone, a member of the ECB's executive board, addressed concerns regarding the surveillance of users of the digital euro. He stated that the digital euro would not replace cash and would offer two payment modes with different levels of protection. In offline mode, payment information would be accessible only to the payer and the payee. In online mode, the Eurosystem would not be able to directly identify individuals making transactions. Cipollone clarified that the digital euro would guarantee a maximum level of privacy, higher than that of traditional bank transfers, although the banks involved could identify their users for anti-money laundering purposes. The use of the digital euro would require opening an account with a bank or a European provider, and even offline, loading and withdrawal operations would be subject to anti-money laundering controls. The infrastructure would be centralized and censorable, with the Eurosystem handling all settlements and banks distributing the currency and providing wallets.