Critical challenges surrounding privacy and financial rights were at the forefront of our interventions at this year’s Warsaw Human Dimension Conference (WHDC), Europe’s leading forum for human rights dialogue organized by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Below is a brief overview of our interventions, the appeals we made to policymakers, and links to the full texts.
From October 1-3, 2024, we delivered three interventions to representatives from 57 OSCE countries, addressing:
- The severe effects of de-risking (debanking), focusing on the harmful FATF regulations affecting humanitarian crowdfunding, and the essential role of Bitcoin as a lifeline in these cases.
- A Bitcoin blockchain-powered solution from Guatemala that upholds election integrity and secures government documents.
- Critical challenges posed by transnational repression and the threats to privacy in communication and payments.
We urged the OSCE and its members to reconsider the legal frameworks around these issues and to engage in open debates with civil society and industry experts. Specifically, we called for:
- Revisiting FATF recommendations on crowdfunding and recognizing Bitcoin’s humanitarian applications, especially in oppressive contexts.
- Exploring the use of Bitcoin blockchain to secure elections and government documents, using Guatemala as a model.
- Revising privacy regulations and halting the sharing of intelligence with oppressive regimes.
We appreciate the opportunity to present these pressing concerns to policymakers. This is especially important given the prevailing hostile regulatory landscape surrounding freedom tech, which overlooks the insights of civil society regarding its humanitarian applications, such as Bitcoin peer-to-peer transactions, and thereby obstructs their rightful use within civil society.
Learn more about the advocacy of the Building True Change (BTC) Coalition
Here are the texts of the interventions:
