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This feels like a method of catching criminals that criminals will rapidly adapt to avoiding. "Don't carry the thing that broadcasts your location at all times while you're committing a home invasion" seems like a pretty obvious thing to avoid once a threat model is understood.

Regardless of the privacy issues, I don't anticipate this approach will stay useful in the long run.

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Indeed. At least for professional criminals.

So this approach will just ensnare random innocents, who happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Edit: Upon reflection, it's worse. Being aware of this approach, professional criminals could capture IMEIs in the target area for a while, write some SIMs, and carry some cloned phones during the operation. Then destroy all of those SIMs. So the police will target the people whose phones were cloned.

Or better yet, pick pocket someone else's phone at another location. Commit a small but likely-to-be-reported crime near that location. Then carry their phone (and not yours) while committing a much more serious crime. They'll be tagged at both locations.

That breaks down fast when the pickpocketing victim reports their phone stolen. Police have retrieved stolen phones via the pickpocketing victim running "find my phone" on their property when they realize it is gone.

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