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by iamnothere 2 hours ago
At global conferences like Davos, where national leaders and policy makers go to schmooze and exchange ideas, this idea has been discussed for years. I’m sure there has been some subsequent cross-border coordination and discussion.

For instance:

https://idtechwire.com/spains-pm-proposes-mandatory-digital-...

https://www.weforum.org/publications/reimagining-digital-id/

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/01/davos-agenda-digital...

Everyone ignores stuff like this because of people like Alex Jones who make it seem like a lunatic conspiracy theory. But these conferences happen, and they do influence policy. It’s not a “cabal” that issues orders—many participants are national leaders bringing their perspectives (see the link above about Sanchez)—but it does have an impact.

The banal truth is that many different world leaders have talked each other into this after years of discussion on the proper way to “manage” the Internet. They see cyberspace as a threat to top-down technocratic control and view Internet-enabled populism (aka democracy) as something to be quashed.

1 comments

> [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.