how would this circumvent the issue? you'd still have to get a plan with a carrier. they can still track your location and your habits through the data that you're sending through their network.
They can't correlate that behavior with you as an individual if you don't provide any personal information to the carrier. You could also just run your traffic through a VPN and avoid all of this.
Several dozen people live within a 10m radius of where I do. I'm not even a registered resident at that location, so they'll have a difficult time correlating "my" data to my personal information.
There's proably, over the last year of your movements, a point which you've made a purchase that can be linked to you. Maybe more than one, and those can be matched against your behavioural data. Or maybe they have parking information.
Perhaps you deal only in cash, and never give your name to a commercial entity (Hotel, gun retailer, car rental or seller...) -- but for most people that isn't true.
I also don't see why anyone would need your exact address. The only use-case that comes to mind is to send you postal mail. If they have your SIM/IMEI/phone number/full name (see above) and behaviour patterns, if and when they want to approach you "in person" that would be easy?
[ed: come to think of it, pair this data with an archive of public web cams, and you could probably a) automatically pick out faces, and b) match recurring faces with location data, to c) pair faces with recorded data streams. Makes all those cameras in the UK seem even more creepy.]
If there is any continuity to your phone usage, then that is you as an individual that is being tracked. That's what it means for a person to have an identity: continuity in behavior patterns.
It's safe to assume those several dozen people don't share your phone. And even if they did, that's a level of familiarity that means you are among a group of people that probably operate as an economic unit. Nobody is stealing you identity here: they are assigning you one.
I believe there are anti-terrorist laws that where passed here in Europe that forces you to register the burner phones with the provider. At least here in Spain...
They don't care about the house you live in, they care about the zip code, so what you propose is irrelevant. A cpg brand says "tell me where do segments which buy from Retailer XY at location Z live?" and gets an answer. That's what this technology does.
I'm aware of the application you're describing, but aren't you saying that you don't know of applications where they track individuals?
Perhaps that's a bit conspiratorial, but it's hard to believe that people who otherwise have been unscrupulous would suddenly hesitate to use information about individuals. What about job applicants, competitors, the guy dating your daughter, etc.?
