And when there is publicly available “who’s walking on the sidewalk” data they probably will

Yes. And it is. Pedestrians don’t have any right to privacy in public and we demand behaviors of them for the privilege of using public commons.

Would love to read HN reactions if pedestrians were mandated to wear a GPS bracelet when outside.

We all do it already with consent, using our phones.

Not everyone holds a cell phone onto them neither there's public data for the position of each one.

“We should remove transponders from private airplanes as the occupants privacy is more important than the safety they provide” is certainly a plank someone could run on if they wanted to change the current laws.

Instead of removing transponders, perhaps just randomize identifiers before each fly, so individual planes cannot be tracked?