Yep, good observation, it really is the same thing, and amazing people put up with it.
In East Germany you didn't have a chance (unless you wanted to be in prison or even more surveillance) and nowadays, most people don't know this is occurring and so its not an issue.
There might even be a bias against publicizing it by media, as the encoding has assisted police in several cases to track down criminals or alleged criminals.
I wonder if these "security" features are on imported Chinese printers (from Chinese manufacturers). It is so easy to order generic products from Hong Kong, even online, these days, for example.