I did some reading and it seems you are right.
No Idea why phones come with a SAR rating then and why there are safe limits defined, when no one found unsafe limits.
No Idea why phones come with a SAR rating then and why there are safe limits defined, when no one found unsafe limits.
I don't see why microwave heating wouldn't cause the same effect.
Even from transmitting heat to the phone's components itself or other items that are nearby, e.g. laptops: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5219578/.
In the wavie scene (people who are paranoid about radio waves controlling them) shielding those devices is a typical approach — this is also where the meme of the tinfoil hat comes from. Ironically that shielding makes your cellphone operate with the maximum transmission power at all times.