Privacy Design Landscape for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)

Project funded by the Contributions Program, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, 2021-2022.

There are many technical complexities involved in designing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) but one of the most complicated of the design parameters is privacy.

This project does not take a normative position that a CBDC ought to be deployed in a modern economy. Rather, it takes the position that CBDCs are a possibility. The project affirms that privacy must be a starting point for designing a CBDC, not an afterthought.

Deliverables:

1. Op-Ed: "Digital currencies bring new options for financial privacy" by Jeremy Clark in The Hill Times, May 5, 2021.

   Link: https://www.hilltimes.com/2021/05/05/digital-currencies-bring-new-options-for-financial-privacy/295602

2. Research Article: "Mapping the Privacy Landscape for Central Bank Digital Currencies" by Raphael Auer (Bank for International Settlement, BIS Innovation Hub), Rainer Böhme (Universität Innsbruck), Jeremy Clark (Concordia Unviersity) and Didem Demirag (Concorida Unviersity). ACM Queue* (July/Aug 2022); and Communications of the ACM (March 2023).

   Link (Queue): https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3561796

   Link (CACM): https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2023/3/270207-mapping-the-privacy-landscape-for-central-bank-digital-currencies/abstract

3. Policy Whitepaper: "Mapping the Privacy Landscape for Central Bank Digital Currencies (Extended Version)" by Raphael Auer (Bank for International Settlement, BIS Innovation Hub), Rainer Böhme (Universität Innsbruck), Jeremy Clark (Concordia Unviersity) and Didem Demirag (Concorida Unviersity). To appear in BIS Working Papers series.

   Link: Forthcoming

4. Annotated Bibliography in Zotero:

   Link: https://www.zotero.org/groups/2482161/cbdc/library

5. Taguette Project and Codebook:

   Link: https://github.com/MadibaGroup/2021-CBDC/tree/main/Taguette