Smartphone/SimCard registration requires name, address and other personal info. And these info links to other systems which identifies you, including your photo. Face photo is just another piece of information for identification, like your name, address, date of birth..etc. Smartphones in China have many uses now, including money payment and acting as a bank card and other identification items. If you register a phone, in China or any other country, then the governments already can track you, with or without face photo. When you use a credit card, have your smartphone on, make online purchases, uses Google, uses Facebook, or uses Microsoft Windows, governments already tracks you.
I don't know if you have it in Canada or in China, but in Australia, there are something called "Pre-Paid" mobile, in the US, they call it burner.
I can get a Pre-paid mobile from Optus, Telstra or Vodafone here in any store, it comes with a sim card and $30 pre-paid credit. You don't need any ID to open the mobile phone, nor name and address to own a pre-paid sim. And you don't need to use credit card and recharge your phone too, you can buy credit at any supermarket or even at newsagent.
These type of device is heavily used by overseas student because sometime you may not have enough visa to get a post paid one, on the other hand, also favoured by criminal in Australia and US because you cannot track who bought them and who used them,
FACT: Police officers have power and ability to access your personal information without warrant.
This is what this all about, storing and accessing personal information.
Stop and identify statutes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_and_identify_statutes
All police officers needed is coming out a reasonable excuse; erratic driving, stolen car, speeding, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obligation_of_identification#Present_day_(Germany)
Police CANNOT assess your personal information without a warrant and generally before any arrest is made, they can ask you, but it is up to you if you want to give them your personal information, however, if you decided to maintain silence at a terry stop when they ask you, you may give them probable clause to arrest you or detain you, depending on circumstance.
In your "Stop and Identify" reference, it also stated that a person who detained at a terry stop (a stop without clause) do not require you to answer any of the officer question, before or after Miranda'ed, some state require you to provide with a name, but that does not count as personal information because you can generally either not answer it, or give fake name.
Say at a traffic stop, you were stopped by the Police Roadblock, they can run your plate number without your consent (as that is public information) but they cannot reach over inside your wallet and take your ID without your consent, they can ask you for your ID, and you can give it to them, or not give it to them, they can detain you if you do not provide them with your ID, but they cannot charge you for not producing your ID, given if you did not do anything wrong other than refusing to give them the ID.
After arrest is another issue, arrest can only be made by either an arrest warrant or under probable cause. The first one is a court order, while the latter one is made via a standard to which the officer of the law have sufficient evidence that a crime have been committed and the person being arrested under probable cause are statistically probable to be involved. Notice that a Probable Cause alone is sufficient to obtain a search warrant. Which would lead to forcible surrendering of your private properties (Any item you have in your house, your person, your car and so on)
When a person is arrest, then it would be said as it is warranted, or suffice to issue a warrant. So only after that stage, the police can assess your personal information.
They "can" as in literally can access your information without your consent, but that would amount to illegal search and seizure, and any evidence comes out after that is then "tainted" and cannot be use in any court of law. It may also lead to civil lawsuit.
It is an addition process, procedure or feature uses by countries to increase/protect security of its citizens. Like, for example, you get face scan or finger printed at airports at USA. or like when you buy and use SimCard in Australia you need to provide personal info and photo taken too.
I never heard of you need to have photo taken to use Sim Card here in Australia
I only watched the first one. The policewoman gave weak excuse "indignity to a Police Officer." She could made up of many other false reasons. Still, the drive gave her his driver license. If fact, she didn't even need his driver license to check out his personal info. She could just enter his license plate and she have access to all this person info that way, including his photo; not warrants needed at all.
License plate are public information actually, those are not protected under privacy act in any country as far as I know. The purpose of the license plate is to public display your vehicle registration, if they cannot be publicly accessed, then would it be defeating the purpose of having your license plate display in the first place?
And no, license plate does not include many personal information, other than the owner name and the owner address. You cannot search the owner Driver License or Photo (Why would you need photo anyway as you are staring at the person)
In many countries, like germany, russia, australia, canada, etc, you need to provide personal information/PhotoID to purchase/register SimCard and PhonePlans. And all those information are linked to you and can be accessed police officers and other government agencies(like CIA, FBI..etc).
Again, you don't need information to open a SIM card in Australia, pretty sure in the US too. Not sure about the other country.