

It all used to be very easy in Australia, you bought the phone at a supermarket and gave bogus info when registering the SIM. Then the “War on Terror™” began and the government started taking things a bit more seriously started mandating the paper registration forms needed to be completed or the retailers could get in trouble. But your average supermarket worker wasn’t going to take the time to do that and it was way too widespread for the government to actually crack down on it.
Took a few years but the Telcos started actually paying attention to the fact that the majority of prepaid phones weren’t getting completed paperwork at point of sale so they just moved to make all sim card activations require online or over the phone ID checks.
Every bit of training I ever did made it clear it was all about catching terrorists, drug dealers and paedophiles, which of course means “We want all that juicy data without citizens asking any annoying questions.”




Can’t wait for the wave of people kicked out of stores because the AI shit the bed and confused them with someone else.
I just think the key to doing this stuff right is to make the executive level personally and financially responsible for any mistakes and any crimes, “Oh Coles shared too much info offshore and led to a data leak with identity theft… Hope the board enjoys spending the next 4 years in general population.” Oh and time to sell the yacht and the mansion to pay the fine.
Apparently they get paid the big dollars because they make the big calls, time for them to face the big risks too. That would keep the bastards honest.
Of course it will never happen, we like corruption in government way too much to make rich people face consequences.