r/ask_privacy

trying to figure out how to anonymously call someone because i'm dealing with a situation where i need to contact a person but don't want my personal number showing up. i'm in the US (georgia) and this is for a completely legitimate reason before anyone jumps to conclusions.

basically i'm selling furniture on facebook marketplace and a buyer ghosted me after saying they'd pick up a couch yesterday lol. they confirmed the address and time and then just never showed. i've sold stuff on marketplace before and this has happened like 4 times in the last year. i want to call them to ask if they're still interested but i don't want some random stranger having my real phone number in their call history.

tried using *67 before dialing on my iphone and it worked but the call showed up as "no caller ID" on their end and they didn't pick up which makes sense because nobody answers unknown calls in 2026. so it technically made me anonymous but also made the call completely useless because they just ignored it lol.

has anyone found a reliable way to make anonymous calls that actually get answered without spending money on a subscription? and is there a way to get a temporary number that lasts longer than 3 days without paying?

Every time I delete an app, I always wonder what happens to the data it has already stored. Does removing the app alter that data in any way or does it stay with the company until you tell them to delete it?

i work in IT and I keep seeing sim swapping come up in security threads like everyone already knows what it means.

Best I can tell what is sim swapping is when someone convincing your carrier to move your number to their SIM, then they intercept your SMS codes and trigger resets. But every writeup I find is either aimed at crypto holders or completely vague about where the actual failure happens.
I've got TOTP on most accounts but a few older ones still fall back to SMS. Trying to figure out if that's a real problem or just a background noise.

is sim swapping something normal non crypto people actually need to worry about, or is the threat model pretty narrow?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and wanted to get everyone's perspective. Why does privacy advocacy feel so selective, even among people, creators, and projects that supposedly care about digital rights?

I’m not talking about beginners who simply don't know how tracking works. I’m talking about knowledgeable folks, privacy advocates, and even privacy-focused organizations who constantly compromise and stick to Big Tech or less private solutions:

• Privacy creators hosting their main discussion hubs on Discord, WhatsApp, or Telegram instead of Matrix, Signal, Threema, or SimpleX.
• Major privacy-focused companies using X or YouTube as their primary outreach channels, while treating open protocols like Mastodon or Nostr as an afterthought.
• Hesitation around truly private, decentralized alternatives in favor of whatever is commercially convenient.
• Reliance on centralized ecosystems and app stores instead of actively promoting and maintaining open alternatives.

It often feels like many people just switch to a privacy browser, create an encrypted email account, and call it a day. (Nothing against these tools, they’re great, but you get what I mean.)

When even prominent privacy figures and companies won't actively dogfood privacy-first alternatives, it creates a feedback loop: 'If the privacy experts aren't bothering with decentralized protocols and are using X, why should I?' As a result, genuinely great privacy-first solutions get left behind and struggle to survive simply due to convenience and network effects.

Is pure convenience and network effect really the only bottleneck, or is there something deeper going on with how we balance threat models and practicality? I don't know if I'm too OG, but what do you think would actually push the community to bridge this gap?

I've been using waterfox for a while now and wanted to know how private it is? And is all thta privacy down the drain if I link a mozzila acount? I was also searching to use a browser alongside Mullevad VPN on PC & mobile, is it a good choice?

thanks

Im hoping for some input. My sister's ex has had her car for months and won't give it back, I told her I'd look into how to track a car so she at least knows where it is.
She's the registered owner, insurance is in her name too. I've read that owners can legally track a car even if someone else is driving it, but the laws seem to depend on the state and how the trackers store your location data.
Does anyone know any info on this? Is it legal to track a car this way, and would you just go to the police instead? Thanks for any advice

been wondering if chatgpt is actually private because i've been using it for everything lately and some of it is pretty personal like my mental health stuff. i'm in the US (michigan) and started using it on my iphone through the app and on my laptop through the browser.

the thing that made me start questioning this is i asked chatgpt something about a medical condition a few weeks ago and then the next day i got a targeted ad on instagram for that exact condition. could be coincidence but the timing was suspicious enough to freak me out. i know openai says they don't sell data but the ad targeting felt too specific to ignore.

i tried using it in incognito mode thinking that would help but realized that's only browser-side privacy. openai still sees everything you type regardless of your browser settings. so incognito does basically nothing here.

i also tried the api route because i heard that's more private. set it up on my laptop and technically api usage isn't used for training by default. but it still gets logged on their servers and the setup is way too technical for a normal person just trying to have a private conversation.

has anyone found a way to use chatgpt that's actually private? and for people who turned off the training toggle, have you noticed any difference in how it works? i just want to feel more private because things that i am chatting about are really sensitive for me.

Was looking out for rent and the place I got a deal for is blurred out on the Goole map but it looked fine on the ad. Why would the house get blurred?

Gonna check out the house tomorrow in person just wondering why the heck would it get blurred. Is it possible to get in unblurred or something? Also, would it be a weird question to ask the landlord about this? Dont wanna seem too weird though I have an ick when it comes to this type of stuff. Had deliveries getting lost in the past over the house looking confusing from the Google maps, so this is kinda bugging me

I’m moving into a new place soon and found a potential roommate through fb marketplace. They seem perfectly fine, but I’d still wanted to run a basic background check before signing anything. My biggest concern is that they’ll find out I checked them. (Don’t want to spoil the relationship beforehand lol). I’ve been looking at a few apps and the more popular ones have A LOT of mixed reviews. I don’t mind paying for something worthy paying for. Has anyone actually used it? Or if you have any other alternatives, please share

Hey i have a old Huawei from 2017 i want to throw it away but it does not even start anymore also opening factory settings does not work.

If i bring it to a Recycling Center will it get destroyed or is there a high chanche someone gets my data out of the device?

so this might be a dumb question. but in regards to the new anti privacy 1.0 law in the EU where companies can voluntarily allow the government to check your private messages.

how safe is it to text drug dealers? are police going to track my phone down to arrest me for purchasing illegal substances? or is this not something that'll happen?

Im trying to learn how to use qbittorrent and the guides i found all say different things. I will be using it on windows laptop. i saw posts that said you have to use a vpn always, then other posts talk about network binding. so im asking for any advices on how to use qbittorrent

I was messing around with a Linux arch distro. I had the file prebuilt by a friend and was configuring some camera systems for it. Nothing fancy just to watch the dog and the yard for packages

I wanna move this virtual computer disk into a physical laptop. Its a Thinkpad and older model only got like 8GB of RAM but for my cameras the Linux arch should help it breathe properly. So my question is if somebody knows of a way to copy the OS for a physical device?

I am writing this since I already seem to have failed in making a backup of it. Compressing the thing and carrying it over loads up a black screen. I might have missed some step so wondering if theres an ultimate solution for this issue

Okay, I REALLY need to understand how THE FUCK Instgram knew that I searched something, on the BRAVE BROWSER, on my phone (Android 16)

Here's what happened:

1. I'm scrolling through a Telegram channel. I come across an article from a small blog that happens to be about an animal rights activist. I open this article in Brave.
2. I highlight the activist's name, search it on Brave (which is my default browser), and tap an article on MSN about the same story.
3. I close the tab, open Instagram - which is running in the Work Profile provided by the Shelter app from F-Droid - and IMMEDIATELY when I start scrolling, I see THE ACTIVIST'S INSTA PROFILE reporting THE SAME ARTICLE that I just opened.

I had Instgram in Shelter. I was running BRAVE - the browser that, you know, prides itself on privacy, and what's more - I HAD THE SETTING ON TO CLEAR BROWSING DATA ON EXIT. Telegram, Brave and Instagram in the work profile should NOT be talking to each other. That is absurd. So someone PLEASE tell me how the hell did Instagram know? Serious responses only please, so everyone and anyone who needs to know can understand this shit.

Need to organize a remote meeting and it needs to look professional.

However, for reasons which I cannot nor I feel is relevant to explain I cant use Google...

I know Discord has an option but I am willing to use anything at all instead of it..😅

What functions I need from the video call:
Good latency, auto noise suppression, and for it to support webcam video feeds along with me being able to broadcast my computer window, or at least my presentation files live on call

I've been looking into what is two factor vs two step while updating the security on my accounts.

Some sites call it two factor authentication and others call it two-step verification. I tried both on my phone, and they seemed almost the same. After reading about them I'm still confused because different websites explain it differently. Is there a real technical difference, or are the terms actually the same?