UK parliamentary committee wants to look into Libra

A UK parliamentary committee wants to investigate Facebook’s Libra.

The House of Commons’ Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee is concerned Facebook will gain too much power by launching a cryptocurrency, Financial News reports. The committee’s chair Damian Collins has also voiced doubts as to whether Facebook will be able to protect personal financial information once the cryptocurrency is launched, considering the media giant’s previous privacy issues.

Collins has already investigated Facebook once as he led the investigation against the company due to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. 

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Collins believes that “[Libra] suggests that Facebook’s almost trying to turn itself into its own country.” Facebook, according to Collins, is a boundaryless global community with the company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg as its sole overseer. 

“If we’re going to have this payment system created by Facebook that exists within a Facebook walled garden, which no one really has access to or can question, then our concern has got to be that this system is going to be open to massive fraud,” Collins said.  

According to lead cryptocurrency researcher at Cambridge University Michel Rauchs, the Libra Association is likely to become “one of the world’s largest funds” which could, in theory, give it enough power to “be able to exert tremendous influence over national governments.”