> In Germany, the government does not trust parents to home-school their children
This is to protect children from their parents, this "anti-excessive-gaming" bullshit is directly attacking personal agency!
If you have the resources (time, money, teachers etc.) to get your children the same education they would get in a (german) public school you might as well found a private one. This is even incentivized by federal and local government. ("Freie Trägerschaft")
(Anecdotal warning:) Everyone I've met (about a dozen people) who wanted to home school their children did so for a specific reason. They were religious, wanted their kid to hold the same religious/esoteric views and thought their kid was their property. Most (older) kids were very happy they could visit an actual school.
If there is a generic backdoor it's certainly not in the OS but rather in the modems firmware. The scary part is that all modem manufacturers are based in countrys that are known to violate human rights in organized ways.
> What you’re suggesting is certainly possible, but the idea that it’s been rolled out to the average person doesn’t seem likely.
It's a known fact that government agencys of certain states hack devices of people they target. An "average person" is still affected by this since they can be targeted "by accident" for multiple reasons. (e.g. through friends, being at suspicious locations, wrong vacation destination etc.) So it doesn't even matter if a device is backdoored.
SIM cards are used for transmitting voice in an insecure fashion, so you can't be sure. Some voice codecs are even designed to do something very similiar to fingerprinting voices.
> No one is taking your [...] biometric details
They were already taken when you had¹ to get the ID in the first place.
¹ The federal republic directly adopted laws from nazi germany requiring ID for every citizen. This law was initially introduced to acquire data about jews and people fit for military service.
> to match everything you ever say or do against you just to activate a sim card
This was never about surveillance by private entities! Federal agencys can match everything you say based on the fact that the SIM card in your portable bug is linked directly to you.
> but at least no one will accuse you of being an enemy of the state if you do this like trying to avoid tagging in China.
You can be certain that you end up in a database if you use a foreign SIM card from a non-KYC-country for a long period of time in a residential area. Your only defence is your network provider not cooperating unless forced by law.
Germany is being turned into a surveillance state bit by bit and I am fed up by people trying to defend it!
I went to a school that practiced "Montessori pedagogy" and I wish I could have visited a "normal" school in hindsight.