How to Make Your Phone Number Private on iPhone [2024 Guide]

Hiding your caller ID when making phone calls is a nice way to increase your privacy on your iPhone. The process is simple! There are two main ways to make your phone number private on your iPhone. 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 “Phone”
• Select “Show my Caller ID.”
• Swipe that off!

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

The Pros of Making Your Cell Phone Private

Cell phone privacy is very important. Something as simple as clicking the wrong link or picking up the wrong call can affect your daily relationship with your cell phone. Answering a robocall might mean you get dozens of unwanted spam calls a day. Clicking a link, well, clicking the wrong link can have all sorts of consequences. We live in an age filled with serious concerns about privacy and data security. iPhone users have a bit of the short end of the stick, as Apple products are notoriously harder to protect since there are a lot more locked settings and software than on other devices. 

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iPhone users can, however, make their phone numbers private. This offers an additional layer of protection against unwanted solicitations, potential data breaches, and intrusive tracking. Let's delve into the benefits of keeping your phone number private and how it enhances your overall digital security.

Additional Layer of Privacy Protection

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. 

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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. Making your cell phone number private has a plethora of additional benefits, including: 

• Steer clear of call lists. Sharing your number with third-party entities makes you very vulnerable to robocalls. If you find you’re getting a lot of robocalls, 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.
• 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. 
• Use a VoIP. 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. 

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Mitigate Data Breach Risks

There are a lot of people online trying to steal your data to use for their own purposes. It’s not all malicious. There is a huge industry for data collection relating to advertising, and companies can harvest data to turn around and sell it to those agencies. Outside of that, there are more dangerous data breaches that occur with some regularity. It is important to keep your data private however you can. 

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SIM Swapping Attack

This is a form of identity theft where someone convinces a mobile carrier to transfer your phone number to a foreign SIM card. Once they control your phone number, they can leverage it to verify a lot of your private accounts, utilizing codes sent to your device. Think about how often you use your phone, even outside of your most sensitive accounts. Losing your phone number is very dangerous. These particular attacks exploit vulnerabilities in the mobile carrier's customer service processes and often require social engineering tactics to deceive customer support representatives into making the SIM card transfer. They all require your cell phone number to start. 

Preserve Anonymity

Lastly, making your phone number private on your iPhone helps you preserve anonymity in everything you do online. Fewer people will have your contact information, as your number appears “blocked” when you make a call. This is especially strong when you are making calls to numbers you don’t trust or are using your phone to make online transactions. Preserving anonymity mitigates data breach risks as you navigate the internet with your cell phone. 

Basic Privacy Steps on Your iPhone

Outside of making your phone number private, there are many simple steps you can take to increase the privacy of your iPhone 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.

Five Ways to Increase Privacy on Your iPhone

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 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 iPhone users 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. 

iPhone Privacy Review

Making your phone number private is a great way to increase your device's privacy, but let’s talk about iPhone baselines and what privacy features they offer. Across the board, iPhones offer a bit less privacy than other phones, as everything is tied to Apple. With Apple’s software, there are few options to circumvent going through their App Store and adding an Apple ID to your device. That being said, iPhones boast impressive security measures to secure your data. If you want a new phone, one of these could be for you! Let's review three recent iPhone models regarding their privacy features and other baseline functionalities.

1. iPhone 13

New: $600 on Apple Store

Used: $360 on Back Market

To start us off, we have the iPhone 13. This device provides powerful performance that’s ideal for mobile gamers or people who use their phones for photo and video editing or content creation. The iPhone 13 also has a fantastic camera, providing excellent features at a more reasonable price point than their most recent models. This device has excellent privacy features, including: 

• App Tracking Transparency: Like its predecessors, the iPhone 13 Pro Max includes App Tracking Transparency. Users can control which apps can track their activity across other apps and websites. This is a basic feature but very important. 
• Secure Enclave: The device incorporates a Secure Enclave. Sensitive data such as biometric information and device encryption keys are protected from unauthorized access.

Baseline Features:

Powerful Performance: With the latest A15 Bionic chip, the iPhone 13 Pro Max delivers unparalleled performance, ideal for multitasking, gaming, and productivity.

Impressive Camera System: The device boasts a sophisticated camera system with advanced computational photography capabilities, enabling stunning photos and videos in various lighting conditions.

2. iPhone 12 Mini

Used: $225 on Back Market

The iPhone 12 Mini is the perfect device for people who wish cell phones were a tad smaller than most models are today. With a 5.4-inch screen, this device offers a compact form factor without compromising on performance. It does not have the insane power of newer devices, but all that processing power is not necessary in most day-to-day activities. Some of the best privacy features on the iPhone 12 Mini are: 

• End-to-end Encryption: iPhone 12 Mini encrypts data end-to-end, ensuring that messages, photos, and other sensitive information remain secure from interception or eavesdropping.
• Privacy Labels: Similar to the iPhone 13, this phone has many tools to help you see what apps are tracking on your device.

3. iPhone SE (2022)

New: $450 on Apple Store

Used: $270 on Back Market

This budget-friendly iPhone is an excellent option for people who want a new iPhone but don’t need the bells and whistles common among their flagship devices. And don’t think that just because it’s marketed as a more affordable model, they are skimping out on performance! Some of the big differences between the SE and, for instance, the iPhone 13 are the camera and the processor. Alongside that, the iPhone SE offers great privacy options, including: 

Privacy Features:

Private Wi-Fi Address: iOS devices, including the iPhone SE 2022, use a feature called Private Wi-Fi Address to enhance privacy and security when connecting to Wi-Fi networks. This feature generates a random MAC address for each Wi-Fi network, preventing network operators and advertisers from tracking the device based on its MAC address.

iCloud Privacy: iCloud services on the iPhone SE 2022 prioritize user privacy with end-to-end encryption for data such as iCloud Keychain, iCloud backups, and iCloud Drive. This encryption ensures that user data remains private and secure, even when stored in the cloud.

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 iPhone 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.