While I understand that this law was created with good intent and I am pleased that money laundering and corruption have been made more difficult, it angers me that one of the few tools available to afford the average person real privacy has been stripped away. There are many people who have legitimate need to hide where they live (by buying assets under a shell): victims of stalking or domestic violence; members of minority groups such as LBGT in very religious areas; reporters; public figures who are being targeted by political enemies; whistle blowers; famous people; corporate executives; high net worth individuals; anyone who angers law enforcement with legal activity; etc. In the age of public record aggregation, it is trivially easy for anyone to locate the average person, let alone someone with the privilege level of law enforcement who can do so with effectively no oversight. I don't think this is a good thing.

I don't view these tools as being much different from VPNs. There are people that have legitimate uses for VPNs to hide ownership of traffic; there are people that have legitimate uses for shell companies to hide ownership of stuff. There are people that abuse VPNs; there are people that abuse shells. The vast majority of legitimate VPN users would be trivially unmasked by having a subpoena dropped on the provider. The vast majority of legitimate shell company users would be trivially unmasked by having a subpoena dropped on the registered agent. VPN users only become "anonymous" with great opsec and layering. Shell company users only become anonymous with great opsec and layering. The purpose of VPNs is to hide from every day people and to force law enforcement to put in work. The purpose of shell companies is to hide from everyday people and to force law enforcement to put in work. The fact that this community of all communities doesn't see these parallels is honestly fairly surprising to me.