Juno News reporter Melanie Bennet examines a partially disclosed 2024 CFINTCOM assessment on digital authoritarianism. It identifies smart cities, facial recognition, biometrics, artificial intelligence, digital identities, movement credentials, and central bank digital currencies among technologies that authoritarian governments can combine to monitor populations and control access to money, services, communications, and movement. The assessment does not call these technologies inherently authoritarian, but warns that interconnected systems can enable surveillance, censorship, coercion, and self-censorship. Bennet contrasts these risks with Canada’s expanding, currently voluntary digital-credential infrastructure.