NIOB | 2020 | The transparent human being | Bi-metal coin

The latest issue of the Austrian Mint's silver niobium coin series was released on March 11, 2020. The theme of the 2020 niobium coin is the "Transparent Man". The Austrian Mint is thus once again tackling a highly topical subject. Data from our everyday lives is increasingly being collected and collated by transnational corporations as well as the state. The surveillance of users and citizens is taking on ever more absolute forms, and the new technologies of digitalization and big data are opening up completely new possibilities for collecting and combining data. Huge data centers collect information about us and algorithms draw conclusions from it.

Not only on the internet, where every click of every user is monitored, we are also increasingly being monitored offline: through "smart" video surveillance of public places, the "transparent patient" in the healthcare sector or the transparent employee in the workplace.

Comprehensive data collection harbors the risk of citizens and customers losing their privacy and sovereignty. However, for anyone for whom participation in the present is important, there is no alternative to the digital world. With Niob 2020, the Austrian Mint wants to address this issue and asks itself: How can we benefit from the new technology without accepting its disadvantages?

The value side: The reverse shows a stylized human eye in the niobium part, which stands for the omnipresent surveillance on the one hand and refers to the biometric method of retinal scanning on the other. The silver ring, on the other hand, is intended to represent a camera lens. Like previous coins in the series, the niobium part is again dyed in two colors. The eye motif is outlined quite naturally in the greenish shimmering background, with a purple "second eye" designed like a modern logo above it.

The obverse: The niobium part of the obverse depicts a group of people superimposed by purple squares. The coin image is thus reminiscent of video sequences from surveillance videos, where surveillance software marks the recognized persons with quadrants. The symbols in the silver ring indicate the data recorded about the people.