I had understood that the majority of countries now required SIM card registration. Plenty of EU member states do, so it's not just the usual suspects(!)
https://www.phonetravelwiz.com/phone-travel-options/sim-card...
> Of the 245 countries/territories with territory-bound mobile operators, 185 countries have SIM card registration laws. 13 will collect biometrics (fingerprints, but some will take a face scan too). 51 countries have no registration requirements.
Which by itself is questionable.
People have to understand that meta-data about you is almost as important as data.
For example just the fact that your phone has signal or telegram installed is meta-data that helps to identify you. They do not need to know your name.
And for bonus:
https://www.justsecurity.org/10311/michael-hayden-kill-peopl...
you can use your own encryption on top of a cleartext model if that is a problem
That's a minor inconvenience compared to not being able to communicate with most people who use these mainstream networks.
I'm more worried about the lack of encryption and trustworthiness aspect of them than giving away a phone number.