Does your partner own your cell phone number?
Can s/he withhold it, turn it off, or delete it on a whim?
In fact, the answer may be yes.
First of all, phone companies are still asking for your Social Security Number to open an account, and that must be stopped as soon as possible. They are for-profit entities, even though they may resemble all-powerful utilities,* and they should not be keeping our Social Security Numbers in databases that are available to anyone who works there or who hacks in.
Do they really need to check our credit before we pay them $60 a month? We might pay more than that to our local restaurants and businesses and they don’t ask for our Social Security Numbers: not even the restaurants, where they feed us before handing us the bill! And the phone companies keep our most precious ID numbers in the computer, long after the credit check is done. In fact, it can even be a part of their lingo to say that the account is in so-and-so’s “Social.”
Secondly, if your partner has the access code to the account (the “PIN”) and you do not, your partner can delete your phone line, can turn off your phone line, or can prevent you from taking your number with you to your own separate account, and you have no redress. Your partner owns your number.
This becomes important in situations such as domestic abuse, pending divorce, family breakups, or such.
Imagine Spouse A wants a trial separation, Spouse B does not. Seeking immediate retribution, Spouse B, whose name and Social Security Number are on the cellphone account, calls the company and shuts off Spouse A’s phone. Spouse A can do nothing to keep that phone number without the PIN number.
We passed a law about keeping the same phone number when changing carriers. Now we need a new law. There ought to be a rule that any adult may walk away with his or her number without the “permission” of the owner of the account. That would not be a liability to the phone company, and could not incur anything but lower costs for the account holder.
Many of us put our cell numbers out there as our best contact numbers. Make certain that you have complete control of your number! You need access to the PIN number, and possibly also the account number. It may be cost-effective to have a joint account, but don’t let your partner own your number and potentially leave you no access to it.
Got that PIN? Check it now.
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*And let me say a word about utilities: we grant them unlimited access to go where they wish, and do what they want, to our land and air and water, and it is time that stopped as well.
