
Well, how about the fact that if you don’t have your phone on you, they can also track that, and in a world where everyone has a phone, it’s arguably stranger not to have one. A burner that’s not linked to you just to have at the time, and toss later, might be a better option. However, I’m sure that’s not great either. Big brother is always watching.
I may be misremembering entirely, but essentially, combined with all the other surveillance out there, if you say, go to a protest, and you and a few other people are going without a cell phone, not having that electronic signal is also a “red flag” or can be, and they’ll monitor you closer through other measures, when possible. However, I’ve gone looking for where a read/saw this, and cannot find anything. So there’s a non zero chance this is a fever dream.