> [World leaders] see cyberspace as a threat to top-down technocratic control and view Internet-enabled populism (aka democracy) as something to be quashed.

This has been true ever since the creation of the internet and web.

It's what the original 90s crypto wars were about: the right of individuals to access strong encryption to preserve the privacy of their communications from the government.

Absent that, pandora's box opens.

Age KYC is just the next fight against encryption and privacy dressed up in "for the children" clothes.

Strong encryption always has (and always will) facilitate criminal and illegal activity. Tough tits.

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies should work within the bounds of individual rights, not adjust them for convenience.

If the price of individual freedom^ is that it's harder to track and prosecute child exploitation, drug distribution, and mass terror attacks, then that's the way it needs to be.

^ "Individual freedom" as distinct from corporate freedom. Fuck non-human legal entities' rights to access encryption, aside from on behalf of their users.