A messenger without a phone number: why it matters
Almost every messenger demands your mobile number. It seems harmless, but it makes you identifiable before you have written a single word.
Almost every big messenger wants your mobile number. WhatsApp requires it, Signal still requires it to register, Telegram too. It seems harmless, but it is not. Your number stopped being a technical detail long ago, it is your real name.
What makes a phone number so special
Think about where your number sits. In your mobile contract, firmly tied to your name and address. In the address books of hundreds of people who dutifully upload them to apps. With parcel services, doctors, clubs, online shops. And almost certainly in at least one data breach.
A phone number is therefore a kind of universal identifier. Whoever holds it can merge records from entirely different sources and build a picture of you. It was never designed for that, but it works beautifully for it.
Three concrete problems
- You lose anonymity before writing your first word. Even if nobody can read your messages, the provider knows who you are.
- You cannot separate yourself from it. Change the number and you lose your contacts. Keep it and the link stays, forever.
- SIM swapping. Anyone who manages to port your number to another SIM often takes over your messenger account with it. That is not theory, it happens regularly.
Why providers want it anyway
Be fair: there is a good reason. The number solves two hard problems at once. It prevents mass-created throwaway accounts (spam protection), and it makes finding contacts trivial, because you can match against the address book. Convenience and abuse prevention, that is not malice, it is a trade-off.
The only question is whether you want to accept that trade-off. Spam can be fought differently, and contacts can be found without uploading an address book.
How it works without one
At PriChat there is simply no field for a phone number. You pick a username, set a password and you are in. Your key is derived from that password on your device and never leaves it. Anyone who wants to reach you needs your username, nothing else.
The price is honesty: you have to share that name with your contacts once, and automatic address-book matching is gone. That is the deal. To us it is worth it, because an address-book upload is exactly the moment where the social connections we never wanted to know about come into being.
A phone number is an ID card, not a username. A messenger that works without one simply cannot identify you, even if it wanted to.