I have news for you, what you describe can be done without those changes, as for security patches, you would not know what effect they’ve had, holes in the browser’s security are found all the time, they get patched and no one really knows about it....
As far as being tracked, if you have a cell phone and it’s turned on, you can be tracked 24/7
This is different behavior.
I work in IT, so I am painfully familiar with these things.
This isn’t about being tracked, per se. This is my concern about industry overtly working with government on these things, and doing it in the dark.