Facebook's Marcus responds to lawmakers' concerns about the social network's connection to Libra
David Marcus, Facebook's blockchain lead, responded to Congressional concerns in an open letter of his own this week, assuring lawmakers that Facebook won't have access to personal financial information through Libra.
Marcus's response comes after multiple U.S. lawmakers in both the House and the Senate expressed concern about Facebook's involvement with Libra, penning open letters to Facebook execs calling for the social media giant to answer questions about its blockchain project, as reported by Coindesk.
Marcus sent his letter to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, addressing the specific questions the committee posed in May. Marcus sent a similar letter to the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Maxine Waters, who called for a moratorium on Libra development last month and later again with an open letter including other lawmakers' signatures.
In these letters, Marcus said Libra transactions would not include any personal data. Instead he said know your customer and anti-money laundering information will be processed by wallet providers, and because the Libra blockchain is open source, third party developers can build their own digital wallets.
However, Marcus also wrote that Facebook's subsidiary Calibra will hold some consumer financial data. Calibra is Facebook's representative in the governing Libra Association. Still, Marcus assured lawmakers that Calibra will not share information with Facebook or other parties without customer consent.
