How to protect personal information and comply with laws and regulations.
By Melissa Strait, Chief Compliance Officer
We've been asked a lot recently why we sometimes review certain accounts and request more information about their owners. This is to comply with our regulatory obligations. For a more thorough explanation, see the following:
Coinbase strives to be the trusted platform for digital asset trading, buying, and selling. Trust is the best way for more people to participate in the cryptoeconomy, and help us achieve our goal of increasing economic freedom worldwide.
To earn and maintain trust, we must ensure that all transactions processed through our platform are fair. Respecting relevant laws and regulations is an essential part of that. Compliance is essential to crypto's mainstream adoption. We have always believed compliance cannot be an afterthought.
This means that you must follow laws and regulations from different jurisdictions. Some are more strict than others.
Crypto is highly regulated. Different parts of the market are overseen by different federal regulatory agencies. This is just within the U.S. We must also comply with local regulations if we wish to offer Coinbase services abroad. This includes the Travel Rule which, in some cases, requires Coinbase to exchange information regarding participants in crypto transactions.
The benefits of web3 will allow users to create and maintain centralized identities. This will make it easier for them to share less information with others and keep that information safer. We are also excited by digital identity advancements that may allow us to move away from traditional forms of identification like driver's licenses or other paper documents. For now, Coinbase must adhere to existing regulations. Some of these regulations have been in place since before the internet existed.
We have to ask customers basic information about their businesses and themselves. We may need more information for certain customers. This allows us to meet "Know Your Customer", regulations, and keeps Coinbase and the cryptocurrencyeconomy secure. We are committed to providing an intuitive and smooth customer experience and protecting customers' privacy.
We have created a coalition to assist other companies in complying with international regulations. This is part of our continuing efforts to protect our customers' privacy. All participants must comply with anti-money laundering, security and privacy requirements to join the coalition and receive Travel Rule information.
To help protect the crypto economy against bad actors, we have also created proprietary blockchain analytics capabilities. We also maintain ongoing dialogues worldwide with policymakers to advocate for reasonable and consistent requirements that protect the privacy of our customers.
Although some in the cryptocurrency industry are questioning the use of Know Your Customer ("KYC") requirements, widespread adoption will depend on the integrity and trust of the ecosystem. To make crypto a success, users must be able and comfortable buying digital currency using common payment methods. It is essential that companies such as Coinbase adhere to local laws and regulations. They also partner with policymakers to help guide the next generation in this area of regulation. Simply put, compliance is essential if crypto is to become widely accepted.
We will continue to work hard to be a leader in compliance — protecting customers, trusting others, and building the cryptoeconomy.
Compliance and Protecting Personal Data was published originally in The Coinbase Blog on Medium. People are responding to the story by commenting and highlighting it.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
By: Coinbase
Title: Compliance and Protecting Personal Information
Sourced From: blog.coinbase.com/compliance-and-protecting-personal-information-b709e65a78ef?source=rss—-c114225aeaf7—4
Published Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2022 16:31:46 GMT
Leave a Reply