Technology

Right, I'll grant you that - can only really speak for countries were I actually bought SIMs.

I know for sure you don't need an ID in Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands, the UK and Canada, or at least you didn't back when I did bought a SIM card over there (either because I lived there or stayed there long enough that it was worth it to get one for cheaper mobile data).

Funny enough, the countries you listed (except Germany) are ones were somebody else was pointing out that people trust the authorities and are more ameanable to the authorities having lots of information about them. (I just checked back and it was actually you who said that ;))

Personally I was quite shocked that Germany, the country which had both Nazism and in some parts Communism, and were one would expect people to shy-away from anything with even the slightest wiff of Gestapo/Stasi to it, to have very explicit and obvious laws in place to make sure the authorities knew who had what mobile phone line were in place and accepted by the population.