I no AML/KYC expert but I have written software systems for fraud purposes before and with that in mind such systems, founded in data collection, are used every hour of every day to link people to activities, legal or not. Given the prolific prosecutorial proof available online as it relates to the value of "who took the money", "who was paid", "who has the money" in such legal cases clearly the institutions tasked with 'security' see a great threat in not being able to follow it.

I was assuming the question was open to "moral" interpretations, rather than strictly legal ones. In turn I keep my position even with your concerns, because the utilitarian calculus of comparing "being able to pay for things anonymously" vs "this is helpful for fraud prevention" is basically a non question in my mind.

My time spent in architecting and coding a fraud system was for employment and income which is not particularly representative of my views about personal privacy per say that we seem to share. I can pay cash for burner phones in stores with no point of purchase surveillance coverage or I can go into a big box and pay with credit and be all kinds of recorded. All about understanding the long game objective as the execution is the easy part.