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It would be nice to be able to open these accounts without providing PII, so that it would be harder to attack specific users, and breaches would not be so damaging to customers.

This US trend of requiring government-issued ID for even routine transactions (like phone service) that aren’t ID-related is insane and dangerous.

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Anyone know of a provider that doesn't mandate storing this info? I understand they want to know your credit to open an account so need your pii to get credit info, but does any cell provider not store it after that? I tried to get tmobile to delete mine and they won't so I'm open to switching to any post-paid service that does.

Not post-paid.

If you want privacy, you need to be more serious than that. Mint mobile prepaid (no personal info) on a device you bought outright in cash. Obviously, no one should know that phone number; you should do all interactions through your publicly known VOIP number that's forwarded. That phone shouldn't be turned on any time you're near home; that should be done with a separate home iPad or the like. And no traffic should ever happen outside of a VPN...

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