This is FUD. No it doesn't speak volumes _at all_. The telemtry is opt-in, with various levels of settings, and doesn't collect _anything personal_. Even it's most invasive setting collects very very basic information. And again, is opt-in.
Also, it's open source. You can see the code and what it does. Which is close to 0.
I wrote myself that it is opt-in, and several times, don't make it sound like I'm screaming to avoid KDE or saying something that isn't true. The packages are not easily removed, and this is not reasonable or justifiable.
Why must it be there even if it will be off ? If I don't use or want something in Linux, and the system does not depend on it, it's usually a matter of seconds to remove it. Why is Plasma ( or Kate etc ) depending on telemetry to be there, even if not used ?
Regardless of being open source and auditable this is not a good policy.
KDE says there's no issue. Plasma since 5.18 comes with telemetry. Just try to remove the packages related to telemetry in KDE ( don't remember off the top of my head the exact names ) and the whole DE is dismantled, they're mandatory.
There's only the option in settings to opt-in or out, but you accept this being non-removable or use something else -- clearly not GNOME, which by the looks of it is going down the same path.
All of those seem opt-in, which is fine for most people. Looking in Debian, I see qml-module-org-kde-userfeedback, which plasma-workspace depends on, so it indeed cannot be removed easily. It is possible to remove however, by using equivs to create a package that pretends to provide qml-module-org-kde-userfeedback. Probably the depends on qml-module-org-kde-userfeedback should be relaxed to recommends, I encourage you to do that for the distro that you use.
Edit: the KDE telemetry policy seems eminently reasonable:
Well, I don't have an issue with the telemetry policy per se, but I do with the fact that Plasma depends on it being there, even if not used.
That's not reasonable to me ( and others -- you can find various levels of protest since this was baked in, from quiet annoyance to full paranoid hysteria ) but then I don't use KDE much these days. I don't like GNOME or others starting to take that route as well.
> I expect distros like Debian will patch out any compulsory data collection
I expect the exact opposite, actually. GNOME has fought tooth-and-nail to get their downstream maintainers to stop modifying their software, I doubt they'd take something like that sitting down.
Privacy violations like this are not something that Debian will take sitting down. Firstly its the sort of thing you can get in GDPR trouble for. Secondly we already do a lot of things to reduce privacy violations, for eg we already add patches to make Mozilla's telemetry opt-in, we already patch lots of offline documentation to remove privacy issues etc, but there are of course many more issues to fix.
Yes, I know it's opt-in in KDE, but the fact it takes down the whole DE if you remove it speaks volumes.