If your this concerned with tracking I think you want to take a look at the LoRa mesh network/devices.
this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2025
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Privacy
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Even with a dumb phone, they have
- Your identity, IE real name and address.
- Location history
- Contacts (since you're forced to use SMS)
- Message history in plain text
So I don't doubt that they're at least aggregating message history and selling data/trends about certain topics to advertisers and anyone who will buy it.
Plus if they know that your most contacted person is also texting/searching about certain things, they can safely sell that also and present ads to you based on their interests.
The data-point that someone is using a dumbphone or actively trying to minimise/restrict profiling is a very important and valuable profiling data-point itself.
Go pagers and payphones. Jump the 5.
I would unironically love if there were enough people in my life that also wanted to live that way to make it viable... Also the lack of functioning payphones these days would be challenging.
The place (at least in the USA) where I've found the most functional-looking payphones was actually Hawaii... And even then, so many are decaying and non-functional. I've had a silly idea to go back and just roam around and photograph as many as I can.
Unlikely, but possible. Ad networks might buy location history data from cell providers.
The short answer is yes, absolutely.
Does it have bluetooth and wifi?
does it run corpo apps?
Is there a dumb phone not made by a corporation?
If a device connects to another device/network then your data can be taken and used.
I've read in the past that Google makes the OS for some flip phones, so yes. You could get a Punkt dumb phone that shouldn't spy on you
You could get a Punkt dumb phone that shouldn’t spy on you
From Punkt FAQ: Verizon: not supported/not supported
Sadly, that keeps a ton of people from using the phone. In many rural areas, VZW is the only coverage that they can get.