Georgia L Gilholy is a journalist.
In another cheerful turn of events, the government is encouraging the British public to stockpile food in case of a Russian cyber-attack.
While some on the Right will no doubt accuse Downing Street of scaremongering, the issue is a live one. Moscow is already engaged in extensive “grey zone” warfare across NATO, and has successfully stolen logins to British government institutions including the NHS and energy providers.
One piece of advice conspicuously missing from No 10’s update on this matter? That a ready supply of cash will also be highly useful should all our electronic payment systems go kaput.
Let us hope that the full public information campaign, set to be launched later this year according to The Telegraph, will include this essential tid bit of information.
This is a tad awkward for the same establishment that has for years been lobbying for a totally “cashless” society.
According to GB News’ Don’t Kill Cash Campaign: “More than five million adults still rely on cash in the UK, and it’s used in six billion transactions every year, but there are strong vested interests pushing for it to be permanently replaced by debit and credit cards and other electronic payments. These cost you more in the long-run and enable 3rd parties to track you and your spending.”
Andy Burnham, while serving as Mayor of Greater Manchester, hinted at support for the pro-cash campaign while highlighting the “discriminatory” plan to scrap rail ticket offices and move everything online. We must hope that he warms even further to the idea when he arrives in No 10 next week.
The move to an entirely cashless society is not just a national security issue, but a question of justice. Completely eliminating cash would obviously serve big businesses eager for people to spend faster and more, and not much else.
Cash does not require electricity, Wi-Fi, a mobile-phone signal or access to an online banking system. A debit card is of little use when the payment terminal is down. A smartphone cannot buy food when its battery has died, or the network has failed.
Small or rural enterprises — like, say, a shoebox café in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales — may not have reliable access to Wi-Fi even in ordinary circumstances. Cashless impositions will inconvenience them and their customers. During a serious cyber-attack, they could prevent them from trading altogether.
While many of us enjoy the convenience of quick transactions, mandating them would be wrong.
A surge of businesses went cashless during the height of the coronavirus panic, often because anxieties about “germy” money were doing the rounds. This lazy logic ignores the fact that half the world we interact with is coated with some degree of dirt, and that the priority should be maintaining our own personal hygiene rather than expecting the world to become magically filth-free.
In 2027, the case against cash is even more difficult to defend. Ministers are warning that Britain is already under near-constant cyber-attack and that a hostile power could disable the very systems on which cashless payments depend.
Supporters of cashlessness sometimes argue that it will pull down crime rates. This fundamentally misunderstands the nature of financial crime, which is already catching up with — if not outpacing — technological change.
A hostile regime like Russia can easily attack any infrastructure supporting millions of electronic transactions simultaneously.
Total cashlessness also means that every minuscule transaction made can be tracked by banks, businesses, the state or other users of joint accounts.
People who fear abuse at the hands of state or private actors, such as human-trafficking victims or people suffering violence or harassment, have less chance of escape if every attempt to spend money can be monitored.
There is also the issue of some people’s relationship with technology. Many elderly or traditionally minded people simply prefer to deal with hard cash after a lifetime of doing so. Why should this section of society be forced to use a debit card because Fulham Felicity wants her oat-milk latte 0.5 seconds faster?
Many people also benefit financially from the physical reminder of their money supply in order to maintain sensible spending habits. Cash can help people on tight budgets, or those recovering from gambling and spending addictions, to impose necessary limits on themselves.
Healthy societies are keen to balance the needs of the vulnerable, the ordinary and the elites. A creep towards cashlessness would plainly further degrade the first two while providing a negligible bonus to the latter.
No one is suggesting that cards or contactless payments should disappear. The point is precisely that Britain should not become wholly reliant on one system.
Although it is decades of government failure that have left us vulnerable to cyberwarfare, it is right that we are warned about its risks. Let us hope that Burnham once again takes the concerns of the pro-cash campaign seriously when the comprehensive advice is drafted.
(UKR)