Facebook’s currency Libra faces financial, privacy pushback

Facebook is getting a taste of the regulatory pushback it will face as it creates a new digital currency with corporate partners.

Just hours after the social media giant unveiled early plans for the Libra cryptocurrency, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire insisted that only governments can issue sovereign currencies. He said Facebook must ensure that Libra won’t hurt consumers or be used for illegal activities.

“We will demand guarantees that such transactions cannot be diverted, for example for financing terrorism,” he said on Europe-1 radio.

Facebook unveiled its much-rumored currency Tuesday and said it will launch publicly early next year with such partners as Uber, Visa, Mastercard and PayPal.

Libra could open online purchasing to millions of people who do not have access to bank accounts and could reduce the cost of sending money across borders. It’s easy to see how attractive an alternative like Libra could be to people in countries beset with hyperinflation such as Venezuela.

But Facebook already faces scrutiny over its poor record on privacy and its dominance in social media, messaging and related businesses.

Libra poses new questions for the social network: Given that cryptocurrency is lightly regulated now, if at all, how will financial regulators oversee Facebook’s plan? And just how much more personal data will this give the social media giant, anyway?