Coinbase Refutes Allegations of Selling Sensitive User Data to US Government Agencies

Shortly after allegations arose that Coinbase had been promoting delicate person knowledge to the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, the trade denied them, reassuring that it has at all times seemed out for its customers.

Citing contract paperwork it had noticed, The Intercept reported earlier this week that it had obtained proof that Coinbase is promoting sure knowledge to the ICE, thus permitting the company to trace and determine crypto customers.
The protection asserted that the trade had offered “a single analytics software program license to ICE for $29,000, adopted by a software program buy doubtlessly price $1.36 million the subsequent month.”
Founded almost twenty years in the past, the ICE is a federal regulation enforcement company working below the Department of Homeland Security.
According to a different doc shared by Tech Inquiry’s director – Jack Poulson – Coinbase has given the company entry to a “number of forensic options offered by means of Coinbase Tracer (previously often called Coinbase Analytics).”
The report additional claimed that the ICE now has the flexibility to trace transactions made by means of a number of the hottest cryptocurrencies, together with BTC, ETH, and USDT, because of Coinbase Tracer.
Somewhat expectedly, the trade took it to Twitter to disclaim the accusations, saying that the corporate’s first concern “has been and at all times will likely be offering the most secure and most safe crypto expertise to our customers.”

2/ Our Coinbase Tracer instruments are designed to assist compliance and assist examine monetary crimes like cash laundering and terrorist financing. Coinbase Tracer sources its info from public sources, and doesn’t make use of Coinbase person knowledge. Ever.

— Coinbase (@coinbase) June 30, 2022

Coinbase has struggled prior to now a number of months, reporting over $400 million in losses in Q1 2022. The agency needed to lay off almost 20% of its workers because of the ongoing market crash, and its inventory costs have tumbled to new lows.