Privacy

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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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How can you clean your phone number (2nd upload) (lemmy.ml)

submitted 8 months ago by trippingonthewire@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

5 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hello everyone! I have a small issue. I wanted to remove all media accounts associated with my phone number. One account to remove was Telegram, I deleted the app long ago, but never my account.

So, I downloaded Telegram again, tried to log in, and it keeps texting the login code to my number on Telegram, it won't do SMS. And I have no other telegrams sessions anywhere else where I can log in. I'm stuck, can't log in to delete it.

I went on their support website to file a complaint, and they never got back to me. Is there another way for me to delete my actual account if they won't let me log back on?

I guess I have 2 questions at this point, either how can I deal with Telegram, and or is there way to clean my phone number of all accounts at once? Any ideas are appreciated.

TL;DR Can't log in to Telegram, want to delete account, how can I achieve this?

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[–] umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

If you can, just give up the number and starts new. It's way easier and cleaner

[–] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Yes, the thing is some part of the service won't actually delete your phone number, but even if they did, your phone number has already got to a bunch of data brokers who will probably not delete it ever.

This is the beauty of mandatory phone number requirements. People rarely change their phone number because it is often a painful process, and companies make use of this by treating your phone number as a long term personal identifier. If you can, it's really just better to get rid of it, however attempting to delete everything attached to it that you can is not a silly thing.