How to Make Your Phone Number Private on Android

Hiding your caller ID when making phone calls is a nice way to increase your privacy on Android. The process is simple! There are two main ways to make your phone number private on Android. One is to dial *67, the classic trick, before the number you want to call. This makes your call come in as “Private” or “Blocked.” 

You do have to type that in manually for every call. If you want to hide your number by default, you can check your device’s settings to see if it offers a hide-number feature. Here’s how. 

• Open your phone app and navigate to settings
• Select “call”
• Select “Additional Settings.”
• Select “Caller ID,” and hit “Hide Number” 

That’s how to make your phone number private on Android! Now, let’s dive into why you might want to do that, the broader sphere of cell phone privacy, and what Android phones you might want next!

Why Should You Make Your Phone Number Private? 

Cell phone privacy is a hot-button topic, and it’s been so for some time. We generally put a lot of data onto our cell phones, so it makes sense that privacy is a priority. I’m sure we’ve all been there; you get a call from a number you don’t know, and it’s spam. But just to make sure you call them back. Fast forward a bit, and you’re getting multiple calls from spam numbers because you confirmed that your line is active. All the numbers are different, making it hard to block them. You can evade getting on lists and call unknown numbers more confidently with a private phone number. 

This section will discuss some great benefits of making your phone number private on Android. 

Call Back Unknown Numbers with Confidence

We get a lot of calls from unknown numbers. On a random day when they don’t leave a message, you can relax knowing that it is probably spam, and you go on with your day. But sometimes you’re waiting for a call, or perhaps you work in an industry where your number is customer-facing, and you take calls regularly. 

When you’re in a position where you need to take unknown numbers seriously, making your number private is great protection against spam. Both options to privatize your number work excellently in this case. When your recipient gets your call, they will see “Blocked” or “Private” instead of your number on their own caller ID.

Steer Clear of Call Lists

Similarly, sharing your number with third-party entities makes you very vulnerable to robocalls. Once you’re on a call list, robocalls can call you back and also sell your phone number with verification that it’s active. This is not the end! 

You can contact your cell provider or the FTC and have your number placed on a “do not call” list. This is a great way to reduce the number of spam calls you get, but making your number private is an additional layer of protection. Setting your number to private means you are always blocked on any type of caller ID. The best part is you can switch it on and off whenever you wish! 

Block Your Number Online

Robocalls are annoying, but sharing your number online opens you up to bad actors who want to steal your information for profit. A common attack is to steal a legitimate phone number and use it as verification for some service. From there, they can masquerade under your account, and you’ll be pinned to the blame. 

This is always a danger when you use your phone number to sign up for things online, especially less-than-trustworthy websites. One way to stay safe online is to sign up for a VoIP service like Google Voice. A Voice over Internet Protocol lets you make voice calls using an Internet connection instead of a traditional phone line. This is awesome! It protects your number online and lets you stay secure. With VoIP, you can select a unique number to sign up for stuff online, and even if a hacker gets access to that number, they can’t leverage it like they can your actual number. 

You can download the Google Voice app on your Android phone. The program guides you through the setup process, but you do need to link your Google Account to proceed. 

Basic Privacy Steps on Your Android

Outside of making your phone number private, there are many simple steps you can take to increase the privacy of your Android device! Later in this article, we will discuss ways to maximize your cell phone privacy, but steps like using strong, unique passwords, private browsing, and limiting app permissions all increase the privacy of your device, just like making your phone number private. In this section, we will discuss some of the basic privacy steps to increase your cell phone privacy. 

New Device Security

The moment you get a new device is the perfect time to maximize privacy. While you can always make these moves, it is easier when you have a device where you haven’t already downloaded and signed into a lot of apps. In general, fewer installed apps equals greater phone privacy. Every app needs some permissions to run, and each instance of those permissions is data leaving your phone. The great majority is harmless, but some apps, like social media, require a lot of data from you even to complete the installation process.

5 Ways to Increase Privacy on Your Android Phone

Now, it is not necessary to complete every one of these on your phone. It’s important to figure out which ones make the most sense for you. Taking it to extremes, the way to maximize privacy on your cell phone is to get rid of it entirely. That’s just not practical! As you read through this list, think about which of these steps make the most sense for you.

1. Enable two-factor authentication. Adding 2FA to your Google account is an excellent way to increase privacy. This means you need to authenticate every time you try to log in from a new device, and it is a far better warning than the email you get after a login occurs. 
2. Use a password manager. We use passwords all the time. Many of us use the same password across many platforms so that we can remember across our dozens of logins. This is a big security risk. If your password is compromised on some random eCommerce website, it’s no big deal, but if that password is the same as your bank, Amazon, or cell service password, then you could be in big trouble. We recommend a password manager where you can generate unique, super-strong passwords and keep them all in one place. Third-party password managers like Bitwarden are far more secure than Google or Apple’s counterparts. 
3. Always check app permissions. Every app on the market requests some permissions from your device. Most of them are benign, but there are always apps that try to get permission to view your location or microphone data so they can record it and sell it to big data firms. Make sure apps only have the permissions they need! 
4. Disable personalized ads. Personalized ads are ubiquitous. Almost every website out there wants to feed you the ads with the highest chance that you’ll click through and investigate or purchase the product. For those ads to maintain their relevance, a whole lot of your data is going out to the company that controls those advertisements. You can disable personalized ads to reduce the flow of your data outwards from your phone.
5. Use a VPN. There are a lot of VPNs for Android phones that encrypt your internet traffic and mask your IP address. This makes your browsing history and location untraceable, leading to greater anonymity and privacy for everyone who uses one. 

Advanced Privacy Steps on Your Android

There are many factors influencing the privacy of your phone. Following the steps above, you can increase your cell phone’s privacy, but there are numerous advanced ways to really maximize the privacy on your device. These are not for everyone, and they require much more work in the inner workings of your phone, where a misstep can cost you dearly. We recommend further researching things like installing a new operating system, a new app store, or deleting pre-installed apps from your phone. You can install a VPN on a whim, but if you delete all the software from your phone, it is nothing but a big battery! 

Generally, the fewer apps you download onto your phone, the more private your device becomes. Think about what apps you want on your mobile phone, knowing that your phone generates a lot of data about you. It tracks your GPS, movement, and speed as it sits in your pocket. You can go into app settings to review app permissions, disable optional ones, and consider deleting apps that collect unnecessary information. 

Alternate App Stores and Operating Systems

Some of the big ways to make your Android phone private come from changes you make from the bottom up. Things like an app store that doesn’t require your google account, or an operating system designed chiefly with privacy in mind. In this section, we will highlight some of the advanced ways to increase your cell phone’s privacy. 

Graphene OS

For those interested in maximum cell phone privacy, there are alternate operating systems you can download onto certain devices. Graphene OS is an open-source operating system that improves the privacy and security of your device. With this system, your phone becomes much more protected against the most common sources of privacy vulnerabilities. It does what it can to mitigate risks across the board, increasing the security of all the apps running on your phone. To the best of its ability, Graphene keeps the user experience as similar as possible as it was before you made the switch, simply including additional privacy and security features in the background. With this system, certain features are always running, but the more noticeable ones, like network permission, sensor permission, restrictions when the device is locked, and other more complex user-facing features, can be toggled on and off.

Aurora App Store

The Aurora Store is an app store alternative that grants users access to the same applications available on the Google Play Store without needing a Google account to use them. This is a great way to get full functionality out of your device without going through Google for all your applications. Make sure to do extra research before you download and start to use this app store! There are a lot of online resources that can help you make the most out of this third-party app store! 

Deleting Pre-Installed Apps

Almost every phone on the market comes with many pre-loaded apps, sometimes called “bloatware,” which are automatically downloaded on the device and cannot be removed. Bloatware is frustrating to deal with, and in order to remove any of the apps, you have to get deep into your phone’s code using something called the Android Device Bridge. In this part of your phone, you can remove apps and features that are essential to the phone’s functioning, like the user interface or keyboard. 

In removing bloatware from your device, you can increase your device’s security by removing a lot of background apps and reducing the total amount of apps on your device. Maximizing privacy on a new phone is easier if you keep your app list short. 

Google Pixel

If you are not interested in going to such lengths, Google Pixels have a lot of built-in privacy. One big one is to stick with a PIN passcode versus fingerprint or face identification. While convenient, using one of those methods means your phone has your fingerprint or face profile stored in its databanks. We also recommend turning off as much as possible in your app permission ad personalization and turning off Google backups. Make sure to use Google’s end-to-end encryption, which works whenever you are contracting another Android device. 

Decouple Data with Really

So, we’ve discussed all you can do with your phone’s hardware and software to increase privacy. There’s a lot you can do on that end! Another area in which to maximize privacy regards the data you send on your phone. No matter how you use your phone, all your activities involve sending data to one place or another. Decoupling data is a new look at how your data can stay private as it travels to its destination. In this section, we will break down the strengths of decoupled data, which we offer with Really’s cell phone plans. 

What is Data Decoupling? 

Decoupling Data is all about separating personal information from data, which means, in essence, that different services have different parts of your data, making it much more difficult for anyone to track your data. 

Data travels more condensed on conventional channels than it needs to be. In very general terms, your data contains your actions and personal information. The way data moves now, major companies like Amazon and Google collect your personal data, which is very valuable for a lot of reasons. When your data is bundled together, for instance, Amazon knows everything you buy on their platform. They create a data profile with everything you search for and buy on their website. With decoupled data, they would not know that you purchased something, just that there was a purchase. 

Blockchain technology is perfect for decoupling data. With a DeWi network like Really’s, no central entity will amass your data and use it for their nefarious purposes. 

Data Decoupling Protects Our Privacy and Security

We are much more secure with decoupled data. Just as it is secure from big corporations who want to aggregate your data, it is also much more difficult for malevolent entities to get your personal information since it is spread across many more servers. As your data is spread out, it means that there is no single point where a breach can compromise your data. If, for instance, a decoupled videoconferencing service is breached, the malevolent entity can only see encrypted data flowing between secure servers. 

Decoupled cloud service providers can heighten security on their devices with many layers of protection. With decoupled data, no service knows who is accessing the data stored in the cloud; rather, it moves to an anonymous user and is decrypted there. When implemented, this has little effect on the user experience. It requires a lot of infrastructure to run correctly, which is one of the reasons that Really offers a host program where anyone can set up a small antenna in their home that builds a small section of the network. 

Make Your Phone Number Private on Android to Increase Cell Phone Privacy. 

There are many ways to increase privacy on a new phone. Making your number private is a great place to start, and it keeps your phone safe from parties interested in spamming you with robocalls. There’s a lot you can do on the device itself, and you can also use a service, like Really, that provides decoupled data. Decoupling data is a huge step in maximizing privacy on your new phone.