Where's the consent? Where's the opt out? These are things we demand of all companies.

Every time I've ever updated my MacBook or my iPhone to the newest OS I got a popup asking if I wanted to consent to reporting anonymous usage data to Apple. I've always refused.

Am I to believe that Apple ignores my explicit refusal of consent and reports the data anyway?

Yes:

https://www.cyberghostvpn.com/privacyhub/apple-privacy-viola...