Yeah, that's a big no-no, I'm starting to realise it more and more. I honestly don't know if there's a solution to it.
I remember leaving some piece of advice about 10 years ago on this forum about how best to attend an anti-government protest without getting into potential trouble afterwards (in the context of these protests [1]). My advice back then was to take a tram/bus to about 2 or 3 stations away from the location of the protests themselves, and then to walk to said location, that way one would have avoided the security cameras located at the metro stations or in some buses back then.
Nowadays, unfortunately, that piece of advice is null because there are cameras actually everywhere (including at the location of the protests), and the government, if it so desires, has access to them almost at will.
Not to mention the advances in machine learning and integrated systems to piece the picture together.
Now you probably won't need to follow the breadcrumb trail of some protestor trying to evade surveillance through the methods you describe, facial recognition will be enough.
And if it isn't completing the puzzle might only take computer time, and not someone in the police forces trying to manually track people down.
The CCP is apparently giddy at the opportunity to help Iran build out these systems, so they're likely state of the art.
Western companies would probably be keen to compete, with the only thing stopping them being the US sanctions. We'll only sell these sort of systems to regimes that respect human rights, like The Netherlands, Romania, and Saudi Arabia.
Yeah, that's a big no-no, I'm starting to realise it more and more. I honestly don't know if there's a solution to it.
I remember leaving some piece of advice about 10 years ago on this forum about how best to attend an anti-government protest without getting into potential trouble afterwards (in the context of these protests [1]). My advice back then was to take a tram/bus to about 2 or 3 stations away from the location of the protests themselves, and then to walk to said location, that way one would have avoided the security cameras located at the metro stations or in some buses back then.
Nowadays, unfortunately, that piece of advice is null because there are cameras actually everywhere (including at the location of the protests), and the government, if it so desires, has access to them almost at will.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Romanian_protests