I think a huge chunk of bad privacy outcomes arise through data retention policies and aggregation across many sources.

To operate, a phone company might need to know where you are calling from and who, a doctors office might need to know your medical and contact info, an isp might need to know your ip address, a dating website might need to know your ip address, your chat app might need to know your contact list, your gps might need to know your precise location at this specific time.

Do they need to know them for years though? And once all this info is aggregated, how personal is the information that can be learned?