The director of the UK’s GCHQ, the country’s Intelligence, Cyber and Security Agency, has warned of China’s digital renminbi becoming a tool to monitor users and control their global currency transactions.

The currency has become popular ahead of the upcoming international winter multi-sport event, the Beijing winter Olympics.

“In the context of the forthcoming Olympic Games . . . China is taking every opportunity to project their digital currency, and their hope is that foreign visitors will use it in the same way as domestic visitors,” Fleming said.

In an interview with the Financial Times, GCHQ director Sir Jeremy Fleming alerted that digital currencies "do pose a threat on users" even though they are a “great opportunity to democratize payment systems."

“If wrongly implemented, it gives a hostile state the ability to surveil transactions,” he said. “It gives them the ability . . . to be able to exercise control over what is conducted on those digital currencies.” 

His statement came earlier this week before the new cyber strategy would be published.

Fleming clarified that it is important that UK remains open to trade with Beijing, but expressed his concern over other countries collecting data on his country’s citizens. He particularly mentioned data on how they work, shop, socialize, and travel, and alarmed that this might result in an “erosion of sovereignty” and would be “deeply intrusive.”

According to the People’s Bank of China, 140m individuals and businesses have already signed up to use the digital renminbi.

Fleming hoped Beijing would discuss with international associates ways to agree on a system that regulates online currencies. Some countries have demonstrated a “real thirst” for a suitable communication on this matter, Fleming said, but noted he was “not seeing that pull yet from China.”