The FCC Wants Your ID Before You Get a Phone Number
reclaimthenet.org
The FCC just proposed fixing your robocall problem by building the kind of phone-user registry that privacy advocates have spent decades trying to prevent.
  • PiraHxCx@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    4·
    20 hours ago

    There used to be burner phones where I live, but they were gone long ago (probably around 2008 with a law that let you change telecom providers and keep your number), now you can only register by giving your name and national ID… however, there is a tad disturbing culture of people buying second-hand phones or trading them around with the SIMs still inside. When they buy a new one they just register a new SIM, and it’s incredibly easy to get a SIM registered under who knows whose name, they are just circulating around and tons of people don’t give a fuck…

    The other day a neighbor asked me to set up the new phone she got (second hand) and it came with a SIM registered in someone’s name, so it already had a number, and her old phone she sold with her SIM still inside, and she didn’t even write down her accounts, she just created a new Google account and a new Facebook and TikTok etc etc, absolutely barbaric…

    Anyway, easy to use someone’s else identity.
    “Hey kid, I need to get credits on this new SIM but I don’t have my phone here and I don’t remember my ID number, I give you $20 for you to put $10 on it, can you do it for me?”