You have a point. I wasn't thinking corporate access (the "private" part of the parent article) ... and more about the "public" (government) access.
After all, the license-plate scanners may be operated by local police, but you must be certain the FBI sees everything. And with them the DHS and who knows what other alphabet soup of agencies ... many of whom can also see many / all of the other items in your list.
While it's true people can try to reduce their footprint, it's pretty hard to avoid doing everything on the list ... and I suspect you only need to do a small few of those and it's more than enough to get a comprehensive assessment of you.
After all, the license-plate scanners may be operated by local police, but you must be certain the FBI sees everything. And with them the DHS and who knows what other alphabet soup of agencies ... many of whom can also see many / all of the other items in your list.
While it's true people can try to reduce their footprint, it's pretty hard to avoid doing everything on the list ... and I suspect you only need to do a small few of those and it's more than enough to get a comprehensive assessment of you.