So I’ve just been thinking about privacy, and how everyone’s location can be tracked. Then I realized: What about people who have no permission to enter the country?
Like do they just decide to not have a phone, or do they still have phones and just roll the dice and hope they don’t get caught?
This depends on your (privacy) laws. The phone operators (and in all fairness, a lot of app developers) have access to the phone’s location.
If the government doesn’t need a warrant, and they can just ask for the location information at Apple or Google (or, for example Meta or X if those apps have location tracking permissions turned on), they could in theory find anyone they like at any time.