I realize recently that cash bank notes have serial numbers on them and consequently anyone could record these numbers. I did a Google search on recording bank note serial numbers and found this this web site called money tracker.
By telling it which note denomination and the serial number on the note and where you are, it will tell you if and where that note has been previously recorded.
It also provides some statistics about how many times a bank note has been recorded, the notes that have traveled the longest distance the total value of the recorded notes and the place with the most entries.
But of course it cant tell you everywhere a bank note has been or were a specific note current is. To do that would require some form of tracking capabilities, which, as far as I no, does not currently exist.
But would it be possible for it to exist?
So I Googled that.
I found this web page written by a computer engineer.
Banknote Validation through an Embedded RFID Chip and an NFC-Enabled Smartphone
It basically sais that it is capable of being done and because of the size of bank notes, someone with a mobile phone could track how much cash notes money someone else is carrying from a distance of 15 meters. Or from 15 meters find any place cash notes are stored
Thanks to Wikipedia links, I also found DICE (Dynamic Intelligent Currency Encryption) from a company called EDAQS.
Ther concept product is used for Remote Note Devaluation, a “digital dye pack” that deactivates or re-activates illegal and degraded banknotes remotely. But they also say:
“The DICE procedure was developed to consequently solve all security-related complications of cash systems today, and to fight global criminality while protecting the citizens.”
But as a disruptive technology when combined with government actions it could be used to track all cash, weather criminal on not.
This would require the producers of bank notes, in Australia that would be the Reserve Bank, to put the technology, RFID Chips or whatever, in every bank note.
Ther would also have to be a reason for the reserve bank to do it. Im not sure if it would be within the charter of the Reserve bank.
Governments may have a number of reason to do it. The Australian government, according to this Accountability statement, would seem to indicate, they have the power to force the reserve bank to do it.
Then ther is the issue of individual privacy.
An interesting concept with bank notes money, is that even though individuals own them (or do they?), ther are laws that Governments have in place that restrict what you can do with them. Like some Governments don't allow you to deface or destroy bank notes.
As bank notes are issues by the reserve bank which in turn is owned or at least partially controlled by the government, who owns all bank notes? When you are in possession of them, do you own them or only own the ability to use them to swap for something for ther face value?
The Wikipedia page on Banknote does not say who owns banknotes, but it does say that governments can in certain circumstances confiscate bank notes from individuals.
Currently cash is anonymous. Cash does not have a way of telling who is in possession of it. That is a big reason that a lot people like cash. Especially compared to money in banks. To have a bank account you have to identify yourself. Not so with cash.
But if cash was full traceable as, previously described, that anonymous status could be lost.
Think about the consequences of that.
As is the case with RFID chips embedded in credit cards, you can put your bank notes money in some form of container such that the chips can not be read. That is ok whilst you have the it in the container, but you have to take it out of the container to spend it. After you have spent it, the receiver of that money could no who you are and ther device could associate that money to you.
The only way I know around that would be to have a whole building mode of the same material that the safe containers are made out of when transactions take place.
If they havent already done so via point of sale cameras with built in facial recognition, corporates could use such a system to no more information about cash purchases than they have not previously known.
This ABC story, Australians are hoarding more banknotes but how far away is a cashless society in a digital world?, Indicares that many Australians are hoarding cash because they are scared of banks and some don't no how to or dont want to do non cash transactions. In doing so they are not doing anything illegal. An attempted to make it illegal to transact more than $10.000, supposedly to reduce the black economy, was rejected by the Australin Government, because it could have made, for a small portion of people, difficult to make financial transactions.
The decreased use of cash has increased the cost of handling cash according to This ABC story:
Will consumers have to pay to access cash or face a future without banknotes?
But if cash could be tracked, those that want to legally use it could do so. Initially the high cost of maintaining cash may be offset by the reduction in the black economy.
All of this is currently only technically possible. As I said at the beginning, as far as I know it does not currently exist
For all those people out there that want to only tranact in cash, be aware of what it technically possible.
This guy in his YouTube video How Cash Changes The Way You Look At Money - Dave Ramsey Rant seems to define cash as Notes and coins, whereas this guy in his YouTube video Cash Is King | Why I Keep So Much Cash seems to define cash as not credit.