- Let's be honest.
The National Do Not Call Registry is a joke.
You can opt out of as many telemarketing
and other databases as you want but it ain't gonna help.
What you need is a new private phone number
and a strategy to use it.
I'm gonna share with you exactly how I do it.
Welcome to All Things Secured.
My name's Josh and in my quest
for more privacy there are two pieces of information
that always cause problems;
my home address and my phone number.
We have to give out this very personal information
in some public ways whether that's on forms
that we fill out, accounts that we wanna open
or even just simply a loyalty card
from our local grocery store.
I've already explained the three-step strategy
for hiding your home address in a video
that I recommend you watch next
but right now we're looking at our personal phone number.
How do you keep your phone number private when it seems
that we have to write it down somewhere every other day?
Well, there's an easy solution
and then there's a better but somehow more complicated one.
The easiest thing you can do
is simply purchase a second private phone number
that you start giving out from now on.
The service I've found
that does this well is one called Hushed.
You can choose a phone number
from over 300 area codes in the US and Canada
and then keep that number for as long as you're using it.
This isn't a sponsored video
but if you use my affiliate link here
you can literally purchase a new phone number for $25.
Using their mobile app I set up voicemail, I send
and receive texts and I even make and receive phone calls.
You have control of how you get notified
of incoming messages and that is the key.
Again, this is the easy way to start using a private number
but for some people it may not solve the problem.
The problem is that your current number,
whether that's your landline or your cell phone number,
is probably compromised beyond repair.
It's been written down too many times
or is associated with your name in too many databases.
In this second strategy I'm gonna share with you,
we're not gonna get rid of these phone numbers
but we are going to compartmentalize them
and start fresh with a new number associated
with your mobile device that you won't give out to anybody
except maybe your mom, your spouse and your best friend.
Let me say this quickly for any Gen Xers
or baby boomers that are watching.
I don't think it's necessary for you
to have a landline anymore
but I understand if you don't wanna get rid of a number
that you've had for years or perhaps even decades.
That makes sense and thankfully you won't have to.
So how does that work?
Well, first things first,
you need to understand a concept known as porting.
Most people don't realize that you own your phone number
and you can use it with any provider you want.
So for example, you could port your landline phone number
or even your current cell phone number
to a virtual phone service like Google Voice, Skype, Hushed
or one of many others that are out there.
And what's great is
that these services can handle multiple phone numbers
at the same time.
The process isn't too difficult
but it does require a little bit of time.
In some cases you can initiate the porting
of your number through an online dashboard,
maybe your new provider will do it for you
and other times you have to request
what's known as a porting authorization code
or PAC from your current telecom provider.
If you really want privacy, though,
I would recommend doing this for all of your phone numbers.
As you port these numbers away from,
let's say, your mobile provider,
they're either going to assign you a new number
or ask you to choose a new phone number to use
and, this, this is going to be your new private number,
the one that makes your cell phone ring.
Hopefully I'm not being too confusing here.
What it looks like for me is this.
I have control of all of my previous phone numbers
through a mobile app like Google voice or Hushed.
I still receive texts from all of these numbers
including all the spam and I can still receive
and make phone calls from these numbers
but it's all restricted to within that app
which makes it easier to screen these calls and messages
or to just have the power to choose
when I check those messages.
These are the phone numbers that I write down on forms
or that I give out when I have to sign up
for a Starbucks account or a silly loyalty card.
The only time I ever give out my new private number is
to those to whom I would wanna receive a call
or a text message any time of day.
It's a select few people.
So that now when my phone rings, and it's seldom does,
but when my phone rings, I know that I want to answer it.
Thankfully, what makes this method
of keeping your phone number private complicated
is really more the effort involved and not the cost.
Google Voice is free although it's somewhat limited
and only applies to US phone numbers.
Hushed has very cheap unlimited plans for the US and Canada
and I'm sure there's other options
that I don't even know about and you're welcome
to share in the comments if you do.
The bottom line is this.
You need to get to a place
where the phone number you write down
on a daily basis is not the one
that rings your personal cell phone or landline.
I've shown you how you can create this kind
of virtual phone number that you control through an app
that will offer much better privacy.
If this video has been helpful please give it a thumbs up
and subscribe to the All Things Secured YouTube channel
for more useful online privacy and security tips like this.
I wish you the best as you continue
to make all things secured.