The advancement of cashless technologies is decreasing the need for paper money. Although new technologies are available, the United States has not moved forward to a cashless society as much as other parts of the world. Many people have opinions on whether or not becoming a cashless society in the United States would be beneficial. In my opinion, although there are some concerns with cashless technologies, they are becoming more common throughout the United States. There are various sources that explain different benefits of a cashless society, but there were two important points that stuck out from the rest. Cashless technologies do not pose any greater security risk than what credit and debit cards do in the present. In addition, the motivation for criminals to commit a crime becomes almost nothing, since all transactions are purely electronic. Although both of these points are explained by multiple sources, most of the articles I found gave various opinions on each topic.
While all the sources have concerns about privacy issues regarding cashless technologies, they all suggest different ways that personal information would remain secure. Professor Allen Kupetz explains in his article “Our Cashless Future” that people already give up some privacy information by paying with credit and debit cards. He suggests that privacy could be even improved from what it is now by being able to add cash without requiring identifying information (Kupetz 40). Comparatively, David Warwick also believes that privacy issues would not be a problem. However, he suggests a different reason as to why our information would be secure.
Warwick asserts that “it is inconceivable that an electronic currency system would be enacted without the inclusion of privacy-securing safeguards. As I envision an electronic currency system, no one would be authorized to access private data without legal grounds and a court order or warrant” (Warwick 41). This explains that private data would be secure because nobody would be able to access any of the information without direct legal authorization. Warwick also points out that only a tiny fraction of all transactions would be examined by “administrators or officials”, and they would only be able to view that information if they had explicit legal permission. (Warwick 41-42). Similarly, one research project published in the International Journal of Emerging Sciences agrees that privacy should not be an issue.
This article explains the technical reasons why our information is secure with cashless technologies. The article examines how authentication can be verified by anything from a username and password, to a fingerprint and face scanners. New technologies would have to be able to provide authorization by ensuring that the user of the technology has permission to access the information. Confidentiality would be kept because information would never be given out to anyone that didn’t have access to it. These items would all be implemented in the programming of a cashless technology, particularly mobile devices being used to purchase items (Anifowose and Safiriyu 191-192). These articles suggest that, although people may be skeptical at moving away from paper money, there should not be any major reason why your personal data is not still protected. Privacy concerns are an important issue of eliminating cash, but the idea of a cashless society is not unrealistic because all of these sources offer one solution that could be implemented to improve the privacy of the public.
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In almost every criminal situation, cash is involved in one way or another. Various sources agree that switching to a cashless society would greatly reduce the amount of cash related crime in the United States. Doug Manchester, who is on the American National Standards Institute committee, suggests in his article about “smart cards” that cashless technologies would reduce the amount of bank fraud worldwide. He claims that each year, Visa sets aside more 400 million dollars worldwide just to cover credit and debit card fraud (Manchester). Likewise, Kupetz suggests in his article that there are several advantages of an electronic currency. First of all, he claims that the theft of cash would be nearly impossible because there would not be any tangible bills to steal from people or businesses. Second, he suggests that people who commit tax fraud would be forced to pay their income tax revenues, which would benefit the national debt (Kupetz 38). The security of your funds would allow people to be more confident in their transactions.
However, although Warwick also believes that crime would be reduced in a cashless society, he believes that it would be on a much more impressive scale. In his system, all funds would be completely traceable and the currency system would be operated by the government. There would be federal insurance for citizens’ money so that people would not panic if a hacker penetrated the system. He then goes on to assert that, even if a hacker was able to get past the security systems, at least it would not be like the violent and terroristic crimes of the present when it comes to cash. Warwick believes that his system would dramatically reduce the amount of crimes from high risk places in the current economy that use mostly cash, like cab-drivers, convenience stores, bank tellers (Warwick 40) Even though each source can agree that crime would be reduced in some way if a cashless society was implemented, Warwick takes a more dramatic view on how crime would change than the other two sources.
Getting rid of cash completely may seem impossible to some people. In reality, we are already on our way to a cashless society. More and more people are beginning to use cashless technologies more than paper money. Since privacy concerns have potential to be resolved by various solutions offered by these sources, and people are starting to become more and more confident in using cashless technologies. In addition, experts are agreeing that a cashless society would reduce crime, at least in some areas of society. The reduction of crime, whether it is small or large, would create a better living environment for all citizens of the United States. If Warwick’s predictions are true, it could even reduce the amount of violence in our society. The benefits of a cashless society have potential to improve the United States’ economy and the safety of its citizens.
Works Cited
Anifowose, Fatai, and Safiriyu 1. Eludiora. “Development of transactions authorization protocol for ubiquitous commerce systems.” International Journal of Emerging Sciences 1.2 (2011): 187+. Academic OneFile. PDF.
