You'll never get the developers (who are largely fungible) to fully grok the long term consequences of what they are creating because they are blinded by the (entirely natural) fact that the company is keeping them fed.
I think you’re being unnecessarily cynical and actually incorrect here. It’s not like I’m told to implement some tiny thing where the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. The entire premise of whatever system is being built is clear, as are all the discussions with the privacy folks, the execs, marketing, designers, etc. Privacy is a constant point of discussion, and often times what engineering wants is made far more difficult by privacy, and they get the final word.
A single person can implement a chosen weakening, compromising everything done by lower-level staff. If you don't think this is trivially possible, you know nothing about the fragility of security.
