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O2 has been leaking its customer’s mobile phone numbers to third party websites. This has been exposed by security pros who suggest that one of the UK’s leading networks is freely handing out this valuable information every time we visit a website on our mobile data connection. The sites can then keep the number and bombard customers with those annoying advertisement texts as well as cold calls.

O2 are in fact permitted to do this, as are all of our network carriers if they so wish. And no law has actually been breached. However being the first to be so publically called out, today’s revelation equals hot water for O2 which is being accused of sharing all information held within our browser, including a line of code called “x-up-calling-line-id” which is followed by our mobile number. It’s believed that not all customers are affected by the unjustified privacy scandal and O2 is yet to address those who are, or give any kind of formal statement in regards to the situation.

There is a method to remove future sharing of your personal information on contracted smartphones which requires you to change your APN settings. For this example we’ve used an Android:

Start by entering your mobile’s Settings menu and looking up and selecting the Wireless and Network option, then Mobile Network Settings. Choose Access Point Names and you should find any APNs relevant to your account. Pressing your Menu button will bring up the option to Add APN. Do this and enter the following into the relevant areas:

Name: (Your choice – for benefit of this solution and for easy remembering we used “O2 Bypass”)
APN: mobile.o2.co.uk
Username: bypass
Password: password

Hit Menu again and select Save. You should then be able to enjoy internet through your O2 data connection worry free.

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