You Can Hide Your Real Phone Number

Last week, we highlighted a tip on shielding your email address from organizations you don’t fully trust, while still receiving all of their messages. Email aliases and email forwarding make this possible. What you can do for your email, however, you can also do for your phone number.

It’s hard to sign up for anything these days without having to share your phone number, which is probably part of the reason we get so many spam calls, as well. So many organizations have our phone numbers, and even if those organizations aren’t the ones calling in the spam, they might sell your phone number to companies that will happily waste your time with calls.

Luckily, just as you can hide your real email address from certain organizations, you can also hide your real phone number. It’s not quite as convenient, but if you’re focused on maintaining your privacy, it’s a good tactic.

In order to do so, you’ll need a service that can offer you a secondary phone number. One of the most popular is Google Voice. With a free app download, you can tie your real phone number to the service, then pick a new phone number from any area code you choose (so long as there is an available phone number to pick from). Once you have a new number tied to your existing number, you can share those new digits with anyone who asks. When they call or text you, it’ll go through Google Voice, unless you set up call forwarding, in which case you can have the call forwarded through to your actual number.

It’s not quite as seamless as email aliases, but it is a good way to keep your real phone number secure. If it gets compromised, or you have too many spam calls through Google Voice, just dump the old number and pick a new one—all without having to touch your real phone number.