The European Central Bank (ECB) released on Monday an assessment of the preparation phase of a digital euro, announcing it will review if the process can enter the next stage in 2025 after the legislative elections in the European Union institutions are completed.
The ECB stressed user privacy and data protection as "fundamental to the project from the beginning." "For online digital euro payments, privacy would be implemented in such a way that the Eurosystem itself – the issuer and payment infrastructure provider – would not be able to directly link transactions to specific individuals," the bank explained. "The Eurosystem would put in place strong rules to protect user information and would in turn be supervised by independent data protection authorities."
The institution also insisted that "[t]he Eurosystem is fully committed to ensuring that the introduction of the digital euro is consistent with a resilient financial environment that allows its monetary policy to be transmitted effectively."
