Amid the ongoing debate among global leaders about how to balance protecting citizens from fraud, exploitation, and cyberattacks on government infrastructure, while protecting individual privacy rights, Nym CEO Harry Halpin believes there must be a balance between privacy, cybersecurity, and compliance with regulations. emphasized that some politicians are blocking innovation.

“Ultimately, the regulatory environment is often driven by, frankly, a gerontocracy from people who don’t actually understand technology well,” Halpin said.

Halpin highlighted recent efforts in the UK to require companies to include “backdoors” in their encryption technology under the guise of protecting minors from online predators, and called them dangerous.

On Tuesday, British officials urged Meta not to implement end-to-end encryption without “safeguards to protect children from sexual abuse,” according to a report from Reuters After the British Parliament agreed Online Security Bill.

Although UK policymakers say the law will protect minors online, non-profit digital rights group, Electronic Frontier Foundationsaid the Online Security Bill would lead to a “much more censored and restricted internet for UK users” and would empower the government to weaken privacy not just in the UK, but for internet users around the world.

“The real danger is that by forcing seemingly simple solutions, such as backdoors or lack of privacy, they harm their own countries,” Halpin said. Decryption in an interview on Messari Mainnet, adding that making encryption illegal would cause people and organizations that rely on encryption to leave the country.

“It’s important to remember that privacy and compliance are something that can be done together,” Halpin said.

Founded in 2019, Swiss-based company Nym Technologies launched its privacy-focused decentralized identity platform, Nym, in 2020 on the Cosmos blockchain. As Halpin explains, the idea for Nym emerged from anger by the European Commission and the European Union over NSA surveillance following revelations made by notorious whistleblower Edward Snowden.

In 2021, activist and whistleblower Chelsea Manning joined Nym as a security consultant to help develop Nym’s privacy technology, which currently consists of more than 600 nodes.

“We think most regulators will eventually understand that to achieve security for their citizens, cybersecurity and national security for their countries, they have to support technologies that enhance privacy,” Halpin said.

He added that privacy is critical for cryptocurrencies to enter the mainstream, have “traditional” financial use cases and defend human rights. Looking ahead, Halpin envisions a new era of privacy where policymakers understand the need.

“There are a ton of privacy-enhanced applications that can be built,” Halpin said. “The government needs time to understand this,” Halpin said.