We are constantly being told that we are on the cusp of a
cashless society. The financial services industry would
certainly like to see it that way. We are being enticed with
contactless cards, mobile phone payment apps, and methods
of bank transfer: all, apparently, for our convenience.
But as Ross Clark argues in this compelling new book, it is
not in our interests to surrender the right to use cash.
Commercial interests want us to pay electronically in order
to collect valuable data on our spending habits, while
governments would love us to move to cashless payments in
order to control the economy in ways which suit them, not
us.
If we choose to pay electronically, that is one thing, but we
will regret it if we do not defend the right to pay with cash.
A massive digital security firm, that is behind the introduction of biometric banking (fingerprint payments), is about to be taken over by one of the worlds largest defence contractors. It is a huge story and yet nobody is talking about it. Aerospace & defence giant Thales has bid for cyber-security pioneer Gemalto. The deal will be approved next month. It is astonishing that there is no opposition to this and that the media is silent. First a word on the roll-out of biometric banking and what it means.
I've talked about the cashless society agenda on The Richie Allen Show this week. The implications of it are terrifying. Paying with cash has been overtaken by credit/debit card payments with increasing numbers of people going contactless and tapping the card on the shops machine, rather than inserting it and entering their pin. But chip & pin/contactless will soon be phased out with banks planning to introduce biometric cards, which will enable the user to buy goods using their fingerprints, like Apple's Touch ID for the iPhone.
You would simply pop round to your bank and register your fingerprint on an Apple iPad. The bank would then register your fingerprint to your card. It is claimed that it would only be stored on the card, and not on a central database. Pull the other one eh?!? So when paying in a shop, you'd be able to place your fingerprint on your card, verify your identity, and the payment would go through. Why is it necessary at all? Why to prevent fraud of course you dummy! This Dystopian anti-privacy * is always sold using the same methods. It's for your safety and to prevent fraud right? Wrong!
Digital security firm Gemalto is behind the technology. The firms major shareholders include Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and BlackRock. 100,000 Pfizer employees use Gemalto smart cards as ID badges. The company has provided e-driver licenses for Mexico and Sweden and e-ID citizen cards for Portugal. This is where it gets very sinister. French aerospace and defence group Thales has bid €4.8 billion for Gemalto. The EU has said that it will make a decision on whether or not the acquisition can go ahead by July 23rd. There's absolutely no doubt that the takeover will be approved.
What could go wrong eh? I mean there's nothing to worry about right? It's perfectly OK for a massive digital security firm that is rolling out biometric bank cards with fingerprint scanners, to be taken over by one of the worlds largest defence contractors right? Thales has operations in more than 56 countries. It has 64,000 employees and generated €14.9 billion in revenues in 2016. It is also the 10th largest defence contractor in the world. It has a very chequered past.The company has been found guilty of running slush funds to bribe officials and was blacklisted by the World Bank because of its FRAUDULENT practices. Hmmm......fraud. A defence contractor with a history of fraud, will soon own the digital security firm that has developed biometric bank cards to prevent fraud and will own your biometric data....need I say any more?
And where is the media? Why absent of course, but then what's new? The UK's Mirror and Sun tabloids are today extolling the benefits of biometric banking, while deliberately ignoring the very relevant issues of a) the companies who currently have shares in Gemalto and b) the sordid past of the defence contractor which will soon own it all! I'm on my own here, I've no researchers or editors and yet I was able to find this stuff out in just a few minutes. Welcome to Planet Dystopia folks.
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Richie Allen
Richie is the host of The Richie Allen Show and has enjoyed a long, and varied, broadcasting career.
http://www.richieallen.co.uk _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
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Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
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