Privacy is becoming more and more valuable as it becomes scarcer and harder to obtain. Nowadays, a lot of work and knowledge is required to increase our privacy reserves. And no matter how much dedication a few individuals put into raising walls against the gaze of others, without a general effort to protect our human right to privacy, the asymmetry of power with respect to those who have the tools to look at everything without being looked at, will end up leaving us in frank nudity and defenseless in the face of censorship.
Yes, it sounds dystopian, almost clinically paranoid, but it is a reality. The most obvious example is the Chinese Social Credit System, where access to goods and services will depend on the points earned or lost by the citizen depending on his or her behaviour. There is also no privacy of payments: being China one of the countries that has successfully eliminated cash, if you do not use centralized registration applications such as WePay or AliPay -although, if you forget your mobile, you can already pay your face linked to your account-, you will have great difficulties. This increases control over the expenses of the potential dissident.
No country is exempt from falling into totalitarianism, and it is uncertain how our data will be used in the future. But a totalitarian regime is not needed to exercise control and surveillance over money. In Western democracies there are more and more limitations in this respect, such as the fact that you have to justify to the bank every time you withdraw large amounts from your account, having to ask for permission to use your money. We also recently learned of the case of a Venezuelan bitcoiner residing in Spain, the twitter user BTC Lovera, who was threatened by Banco Sabadell with closure of his account if he continued to buy crypto-currencies: