• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Is O2 sending your mobile number to websites?

notebook

Android Enthusiast
I've just read here that O2 seem to be inserting a particular header to identify the number of your phone when you visit any website. You'll need to visit the above link via your mobile data connection to see if the relevant header contains your phone's number.

Does anyone else have any experience of this on O2 (or any other carrier, e.g. Giffgaff)? Could someone verify it?

I use Orange and can confirm that it doesn't inject any line identifying my number, only my carrier.

This seems like a disaster waiting to happen for O2 and leaves unwitting users open to all kinds of scams and worse.

(This could be broader than a single carrier issue and I think it's of general interest, which is why I'm posting it here and not the O2 carrier sub-forum.)
 
After yesterday's debacle, O2 seem to have fixed things, although the media had to get involved before they pulled their finger out.

However, there's still that 'we-only-give-your-number-to-trusted-partners-which-is-standard-industry-practice' bit. For instance, if you used Orange's 'shopping search' they state 'The products listed in our shopping search results are supplied by retailers that are trusted partners of Orange and Shopping.com (our shopping search partner).' That's a lot of 'trusted partners' with no indication as to whether or not they're being given the customer's mobile number.

The industry needs to do some clarification on this.
 
I wish I'd seen this earlier, my other half is on O2. She'd probably be ok as she just uses her phone as a phone and never actually goes on the net with it.
 
Back
Top Bottom