Bill Description: House Bill 750 would define programmable money and regulate its use.
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Does it give government any new, additional, or expanded power to prohibit, restrict, or regulate activities in the free market? Conversely, does it eliminate or reduce government intervention in the market?
House Bill 750 would amend sections 28-1-201 and 28-9-102, Idaho Code, to exclude “programmable money” from the definitions of “money” and “deposit account,” respectively.
The bill would also create Chapter 54, Title 28, Idaho Code, titled the “Consumer Payment Rights and Transparency Act.” This act would define “programmable money” and limit how it can be used, with a focus on preventing its use to implement a “social credit score system”.
The act would prohibit requiring “the use of programmable money for any transaction without offering a non-digital alternative free of charge.”
It would also prohibit denying a transaction on the basis of a wide range of factors including sex, race, or ethnicity; political opinion, speech, religion, or affiliations; medical history, including vaccination status; purchase and browsing history; geographical location; a person’s trade, profession, or business activity; application of a social credit score system or similar evaluation; or any other lawful activity.
Additionally, it would be prohibited to “cause or allow, through an act or omission, the denial of a transaction” based on any of the above criteria “through direct action, automation, or programming.”
The act would define “programmable money” as a “medium of exchange, including a digital asset or token, regardless of whether the issuer is a governmental or non-governmental entity or a public or private entity, that can be encoded with specific rules and conditions that allow it to be automatically controlled and used according to predefined parameters.”
These parameters include “the capability to deny or approve a specific transaction; allowing user-specific restrictions on location, time, use, and identity of the transaction or parties to the transaction; expiring or diminishing, instead of being subject to ordinary inflation; or being used to implement a social credit score system.”
The act would define an “issuer” of programmable money as “any person or entity that creates, controls, or distributes programmable money.”
These definitions mean the restrictions in the law would apply equally to private actors and public actors, limiting the use of both privately-issued currencies or similar products and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). This combined application of the law creates challenges because — while such restrictions on CBDCs may be warranted — a similar level of constraint on the private sector is not.
It is neither unreasonable nor inherently discriminatory for a private company to create a limited-purpose digital currency (such as for use at a specific event or location) or to hold an event where all transactions require the use of the digital currency.
The definitions and restrictions in this bill could potentially apply to a wide range of existing products, such as certain payment apps, digital gift cards, and in-game currencies. And under the provisions of this bill, such platforms (even purely digital ones) would be required to offer “a non-digital alternative” form of payment.
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Does it directly or indirectly create or increase penalties for victimless crimes or non-restorative penalties for non-violent crimes? Conversely, does it eliminate or decrease penalties for victimless crimes or non-restorative penalties for non-violent crimes?
Violations would be crimes punishable by a $10,000 fine, up to a year of imprisonment, or both. “Each denial or failed transaction not justified” would be a separate offense.
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Does it violate the spirit or the letter of either the United States Constitution or the Idaho Constitution? Examples include restrictions on speech, public assembly, the press, privacy, private property, or firearms. Conversely, does it restore or uphold the protections guaranteed in the US Constitution or the Idaho Constitution?
To the extent that the act prohibits governments or central banks from leveraging programmable money to prohibit — or effectively punish through exclusion — otherwise lawful activities, including those explicitly protected by the constitution, it is consistent with the goal of protecting fundamental rights.
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