It is an absolute certainty that any tool to improve privacy and security is going to be used by malicious actors.

That does not mean it should be banned. Knives are used for many things from cutting food and opening boxes to killing people. Nitrate based fertilizers can be used for vastly improving crop yields but can also be used for bombs. Encryption can be used to protect your sensitive personal data from criminals and prying eyes, but can also be used by the criminals themselves to hide their activities.

No state (even if it was the most ethically illuminated utopia) has the power to protect every person in every place at every time. Banning defensive tools is asinine as rarely does it mean that a criminal won't use them against you.

That is a dangerously naive viewpoint - trusting that the only instances are the ones they proudly brag about? When they have been caught not even allocating all of the funds for Child Pornography prevention they have been allocated while using "the children" as an excuse to undermine cryptography?

It is doubly foolish to believe that the police are the only users of forensic software when there is credit card theft and multmillion dollar ransomware rings out there. Robbing a bank by force or by heist is foregone jail but snatching a laptop from a banker? Far more petty in risk and disguised as mere property theft as opposed to the data theft.

The threat model in corporate espionage is absolutely one of theft of property. It’s a lot easier to steal somebody’s laptop than to hack it.