Google is now self-Verifying Phone Number without user CONSENT

[u/Nanosinx]

WARNING: Google Play Services is quietly "Self-Verifying" and linking your phone number to ALL signed-in accounts without explicit permission.

Just a heads up for anyone who values basic privacy on Android.

Check your inbox for emails from noreply-phone-verification@google.com.

Without asking for my confirmation or giving me an opt-in prompt, Google Play Services performed a silent background "Self-Verification."

It exchanged SIM card identifiers and device metadata with my mobile carrier, grabbed my phone number, and automatically attached it to EVERY Google account logged into my phone.

No prompt. No "Do you want to link this?" button. Just a silent background action followed by a notification email telling me it already happened.

How to kill this setting on Android immediately (for now) but it will self verify even if turned off Go to Settings > Google (or Google Services) > All Services > Phone Number Verification

Find Phone number verification (or Device Phone Number Verification). (Ah, and lovely it automatically appear my phone number even WHEN IT WAS NOT THERE BEFORE!)

TOGGLE IT OFF.

Don't forget to purge your accounts:

Once Google steals/verifies the number, it pushes it to your Google account profiles.

You need to log into myaccount.google.com/personal-info, click on Phone, and manually delete the number from every single account where you don't want it stored.

Modern "self-verification" dark patterns are completely out of hand. Check your settings before Google silently grabs your data too.

NO ANDROID IS SAFE: Happened on my Android 10 Huawei, Android 14 Xiaomi and is now requesting on my emulators too...even my tablet... Beware...

Edit1: Maybe dont work, i sent a mail to data-protection-office@google.com, literally asking ARCO rights and anything i can think about it, for such privacy invasion on the behalf of my and all accounts i have to "care" and so on...maybe this bring pressure

Edit2: u/AppleBites reports this "Google did the same to me when I got a 2nd number from another carrier, due to coverage. Even having GrapheneOS did not prevent them from linking the number to my Google account automatically."

Meaning even Graphene OS+GServices probably is unable to protect with this, a serious oversteeping in this messed thing

[u/Jimbuscus]

r/GrapheneOS

r/LineageOS

r/Murena

[u/vandreulv → u/Jimbuscus]

This phone number verification is going to happen regardless if you use a stock or third party rom because it is part of play services. It's explicitly part of the setup process when you log in on a new device.

[u/Jimbuscus → u/vandreulv]

These AOSP OS's don't come with Play Services, it's opt-in.

With GrapheneOS, Play Services can be installed after setup as a containered unprivileged app like a normal app store.

Google Play on Graphene doesn't behave the same as other AOSP ROMs.

[u/vandreulv → u/Jimbuscus]

I know. I'm a LOS device maintainer and developer.

Hence why I said "part of play services."

People who use third party roms without play services are a vanishingly small minority of users. The total number of GrapheneOS users across every device ever supported is less than the number of people who have installed LineageOS on their most used device. Less than half.

Even in GrapheneOS, GPServices can still collect your phone number and use it for verification.

[u/Nanosinx → u/Jimbuscus]

Sadly i dont think they work on my Xiaomi (X4 GT), Huawei P30 and P30 Lite and my tablets xD

Graphene is for pixels, lineage os never released for MediaTek powered devices, and Murena is kinda different...

[u/Jimbuscus → u/Nanosinx]

Murena e/OS is a LineageOS fork with a smaller device list, I tried to install it on my Galaxy Tab S5e and it's installation guide didn't include Linux, so I switched to LineageOS and had a much easier time.

By far LineageOS is going to be the most likely option when you are considering your next phone, but if you were to choose a Pixel than I can strongly recommend GrapheneOS.

It doesn't look like Graphene will be supporting Pixel 11 due to hardware downgrades, with Motorola being the next OEM they're moving support to. GrapheneOS is focused more on security than de-googling.

LineageOS is nice on my tablet, not having Google & Samsung popping up frequently, installing random apps like Roblox without approval, it's amazing how clean and simple it is.

[u/Nanosinx → u/Jimbuscus]

But my devices does not support it and also is a shame too how Xiaomi makes it harder to swap OSes xD

[u/Jimbuscus → u/Nanosinx]

Xiaomi is the best value hardware, but they do make it unfairly difficult to unlock the bootloader with a permission request from server, which never promises that you will actually be allowed.

Just saying that next time you need a new phone, you should consider seeing what's supported by any of these 3 options.