[Jhsto]

Cellular base stations allow a database of SIM cards to be created. This could be considered a superior tracker to advertisement IDs of Apple and Google. This is because the ID is retained between user equipment changes. This information is exchanged before actual data transmission, i.e., it does not matter even if the actual data would be encrypted.

I think it's inevident that the more precise geolocation data of 5G (due to an increased base station installations required by the mmWave frequencies) will be sold to advertisers. Essentially, Australia is betting that European manufacturers will respect privacy better than China - and sure, at least European companies do not need to hand over their data to authorities. Having seen surveillance implementations installed in Chinese IoT devices, it is more or less true that China is at least keeping the doors open for an intertwined database where information from various different Chinese companies can be built.