What is Calibra? Facebook's central bank for Libra

The entrance to the world of digital currencies by Facebook has come from Libra and Calibra. Libra is the new flagship product with which Facebook intends to have a global reach. On the other hand, Calibra is a company created by Facebook in order to control the future ecosystem of Libra.

What is Calibra?

OAnother of Facebook's recent creations is Calibra. This is one entity de regulation of the entire ecosystem Pound. This means that Calibra will have functions very similar to the current ones benches Central. Weird, no?. A "central bank" for a cryptocurrency goes against everything the community proclaims cripto. But the truth is, in the context of Libra this makes a lot of sense and that is that as we have said, Libra is not a cryptocurrency.

At this point, the goal of this company is ensuring that Libra achieves its business objectives and has the necessary support so that nothing stops it. For this, Calibra will serve to legally differentiate Facebook from Libra and Calibra's operations and all that ecosystem. In addition to this, this company becomes the working link between Libra and policy makers of this currency digital.

What is the relationship between Libra, Calibra and Facebook?

Facebook has introduced Calibra as the “company that actually developed Libra”. However, all Calibra staff is a template that in one way or another is related to Facebook. Following the introduction of Libra, Calibra has released the Libra Core source code so that it can be accessed by anyone. Nevertheless, Libra Core is only a very small part of Libra and much of the development around it is private.

This situation is ideal for Facebook and Calibra as its objective is control the entire Libra ecosystem in any of its aspects. For these reasons, Libra is in a complete and centralized dependence on Calibra. In other words, Calibra is the one who, together with the Libra Association companies, decides the destination of Libra down to the smallest detail.

Thus, Libra's development is far from being an open and decentralized process like the ones that enjoy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin o Ethereum. In fact, if you wanted to participate in development, you could only do it on a small part of the system. Meanwhile, the rest are kept in a black box away from the eyes of the public.

The responsibilities? by Calibra

Given Libra's reach, Calibra has in principle a number of "responsibilities" who seek not only "protect the consumer" but also respond to the regulations of the different countries where the Facebook currency and its own interests will operate. These responsibilities include:

1. Protect and maintain "privacy" of the personal and financial data of Libra and Calibra users on any of its user platforms.
2. Create mechanisms to enforce local and international law and thus prevent crimes of any kind on the Libra platform.
3. Partnership with payment system providers to share information and facilitate the use of Libra, respecting privacy and preventing crimes in said payment mechanisms.
4. Create education and care mechanisms for Calibra users.

Certainly reading this we think that the work of the company is laudable, but Nothing further from the truth. The really true thing is that:

1. Calibra has the power to use your financial data and associate it with your profile of social network Facebook to make a more accurate data metric of your person and activities. The Spruce Hermano at a level never seen before and not even imagined in the worst scenarios.
2. The company can not only spy on your financial data, but also may forbid you to use their currency without notice.
3. Law enforcement and the fight against terrorism are effective arguments commonly used to control everything and violate your privacy at any time.
4. Calibra and Facebook see a very tempting business opportunity with which to attract users, from which they will mine and exploit all their economic data.

Calibrate, unresolved fears and doubts

First of all one of the main fears of the community and users regarding Calibra is its association with Facebook. The two companies are certainly completely autonomous, but the fact that it was born from the efforts of Facebook raises suspicions in users. Facebook's record of respect for privacy is virtually non-existent. This has caused a strong aversion to the project and has sparked different criticisms.

For example, Mark Zuckerberg ha "promised" which Libra and Calibra will respect the privacy of their users. This has been presented by Zuckerberg as follows:

However, This is false. Checking between responsibilities presented by Calibra, we can observe the following:

Other threats to privacy

Calibra and Libra also show clear indications of threats and privacy violations of their users. All this articulated by gray legal areas that make it clear that Calibra has thought of everything except respecting the privacy and security of its users. Among these threats we can highlight:

1. Global data management. Calibra may share global data with Facebook or third parties, related to the performance of its products and services. An example would be a graph showing the total number of users of the service. Calibra will use techniques to prevent global data from being linked to a person.
2. The company will use Facebook data to comply with the law, protect customer accounts, mitigate risks and prevent crime.
3. Calibra will use customer data to facilitate and enhance the product experience, to market Calibra's products and services, to comply with legal and regulatory obligations, and to ensure safety and integrity. Additionally, we may use customer data to conduct research projects related to financial inclusion and economic opportunity, for example with academic institutions and NGOs, but the results that are published will only include global statistics.

These three articles presented by Calibra leave the door open to a new opportunity to violate the privacy of users. Practically, these three articles indicate that Calibra can, and will, use the data collected by Calibra and Facebook to give third parties information about our economic activities. This has happened before with Facebook and the most famous case is that of Cambridge Analytica, which is related to the last article here described.

This context gives a very clear picture of the serious danger to security and privacy that Facebook, Calibra and Libra represent with their services. Some risks that the crypto community and cypherpunk has sought to overcome since its inception.

The same dog with a different collar

Facebook was presented as a social network, to share elements and vital experiences ... the problem is that:

• It is still what it was at the beginning, a superficial voting system, in which what counts is what is seen, not what is really behind it.
• It is designed in such a way that it is difficult to use it well as a social network.
• It's actually dedicated to effortlessly obtaining massive amounts of your data to sell.
• It also has a censorship system, totally arbitrary in terms of its measurements. Promoting exclusion, something totally opposed to the value that the word represents social.

Logic recommends us to be cautious with Calibra and the Libra project, it does not feel like a project that generates trust. If not rather as the attempt to commute centralized power by the central banks of the states, towards a kind of corporate and private central bank. A move that would allow the private sector to bypass state regulations, to be able to act at will, being a source of aggravation of social inequality.

Remember that this is not a decentralized cryptocurrency, but a digital currency controlled by one of the least scrupulous personal data cartels out there today. Data that you would not give if someone called you at home to do a survey, data that you would not give to a stranger if they asked you. Much less if you knew that there are people willing to pay for them. But above all, data that has not been asked for in a clear, open and direct way from the beginning.
Would you trust your savings to an entity that has lied to you as soon as you started your relationship with it?