this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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Privacy

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Discord refuses to remove my phone number attached to my account (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hi, there's this situation i currently have with discord support, that they refuse to delete my phone number from my account. Basically every time i try to manually remove it, my account gets locked up until i add another phone number in order to continue accessing the service, "for security reasons" with no option for email verification (of course).

I contacted the support team asking for clarifications and if they could remove the phone number and, in short, they said that they couldn't do that since my account was flagged somehow, and that they won't remove the phone verification...

(their email)

Now, what are your opinions about this? Should i use a free voip number site in order to replace my real phone number with the fake one? My concern is that i don't know who could own that number so i don't know if it's safe to trust it, and i'm not willing to spend any money for this

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Are you from the EU? If so, just threaten them with reporting them to the GDPR people

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

luckily i've found this website that could help me with this

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's really helpful, thanks.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

"Beware, Discord is very shifty when it comes to privacy data requests. Last year their Privacy Policy stated "In addition to the functionality available through the “Settings” of the Services, in which you can correct, update, amend, or delete certain personal data, you can also request . . . from us directly. Please write us at [email protected] with the words “Personal Data Request” in the subject . . . along with an explanation of what data subject right you are seeking to exercise."

However they have since removed that text and there is a new clause that states they have a dedicated "Data Protection Officer" email. See, what they don't tell you is that [email protected] is only for questions about privacy - not data requests. They have kept their DPO email hidden until recently and now it shows on their privacy policy as stated "You can contact Discord’s Data Protection Officer at [email protected]." Curiously, they have removed all mention of "Personal Data Request" from their Privacy Policy. So unless you know what you are doing, you wouldn't know what to look for. Just a heads up!"

This comment was made by a certain "Joe" under the section of Contact information for privacy-related requests to “Discord, Inc.” on that same website i linked. So as he said if you will report a deletion request for Discord, make sure you send it to their Data Protection Officer at [email protected].

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Unfortunately this is not a violation of GDPR unless they refused to delete all of your data.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The will give exactly 0 fucks about that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I wonder if anyone from the US had any luck with these request. Not that it has any jurisdiction but more of a “not my job to sort them" type deal.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

delete discord from your life, fuck them

(if that is not an option for you, i understand but can't help unfortunately)

i did when they started to want my phone number

remember to use the GDPR to delete all your data, they need every message id from you for that, but with a bit of cat, grep and sed you can easily get that from a discord data package

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Did you replace discord with something else? Or did you completely delete that kind of social in your internet life?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I use Matrix (with Element client). It's federated like lemmy and it rocks!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You could delete the account.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I want that to be the last resort

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Even if you change the phone number they're going to keep a record of your previous numbers.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

then i guess it would be the same if i "delete" my account?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Correct. You could use GDPR regulations to have them remove all your information once the account's gone.

And then over time frame they are required to forget about you.

But they are never ever ever going to forget a phone number, they will call it a security matter and keep it for anti-fraud purposes. I believe that's allowed.

Basically once your personal information is associated with a online account it is tainted. And if you are worried about your personal information being attached to an account you can no longer use that account because it is in fact tainted forever

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So i guess i should delete this account and create another one in discord, because what i want to do is to bridge it with matrix. By the way i remember there was a site that could write examples of requests about deleting account informations under the GDPR, do you for istance remember this kind of site because i write like ass when it comes to gdpr requests and i'm not convincing enough to scare them.

edit: i found this useful website https://www.datarequests.org/blog/sample-letter-gdpr-erasure-request/ that writes a complete deletion requests under the gdpr laws. It even lists the data protection officer's email from discord (which is where you should send your GDPR related deletion requests but that's obviously not stated into discord privacy policy) plus other useful informations: https://www.datarequests.org/company/discord

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

GDPR only applies to those in Europe btw. Not everyone can just use gdpr regulations to have their information removed.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

luckily i live in Europe!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

How does discord know you don't live in Europe now? You could have moved recently.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Discord doesn't care about privacy, if you do then Discord isn't the service for you. You could use a burner number, or host your web VoIP server where you don't need to worry about your privacy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

how can i do that? is it costly?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

A service like VoIP.ms you can get a DID (phone number) that supports SMS for a one time fee around $2 and usage fees around $0.001/minute

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The cheapest option would be to just buy a cheap sim and verify the number with discord then throw the sim in the bin.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

don't they have monthly fees?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think Google offers free phone numbers through Google Voice. As far as I know, you can port in numbers too, so if you really wanted, up could get an inexpensive prepaid plan then transfer it to Google. (but I doubt there will be a problem using the Google Voice number that is assigned for free)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You can get prepaid sims which don't renew automatically. You can also find carrier's that allow you to cancel whenever no extra charge.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Best bet is to purchase a prepaid sim card and activate it with an old spare mobile phone (if you have one, that is). This is how you get a "physical" number that's authentic enough for sms verification. This is assuming you live in a place where prepaid sims are sold freely and can be activated without hassles.

There are websites and applications offering "burner numbers" for situations like this or people living in places that place restrictions in new sim cards. Most of them tend to get their numbers from voip providers sold cheaply. They can work most of the time, but picky organizations like Google and Discord can and will probably detect voip numbers when it's the case.

My personal experience is that Google doesn't like it and refuse those ones, asking for an actual "physical" phone number. Discord, on the other hand, did accept voip numbers when I tried (around 2 years ago).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

To add on to this, after you verify your account with a prepaid sim number, you can port that number to a free VoIP service so it becomes useless for tracking you IRL but you can still use it to reset your password if needed. It's not like they keep checking after it's already verified.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Probably because they need your phone number to verify the account. If you don’t like it, delete your account (knowing they still have your phone number because you gave it to them).

If you didn’t want them having it, why did you give it to them in the first place?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

because back then i didn't know what privacy on the internet was

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

One of the servers I’m in requires a phone number in order to post and comment. Glad I never added my number in the first place. OP, I hope you can eventually get your number removed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks, this all thing is stressing me out in a way i can't explain to be honest

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Discord is the worst, matrix is not the best but way better than discord

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In terms of privacy, sure... but in terms of usage and beauty i sadly say that discord wins. I'm very attached to vencord which has many useful plugins that improve the discord user experience, there won't ever be something similar for matrix, ever

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

"Ever" may be a bit pessimistic, Cinny is going the right way, not totally there yet, but it is their objective

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Matrix is just reinventing the bike, go on xmpp

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Can you have channels grouped under a server/space with it?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

that's weird. I just opened discord and deleted my phone number without any issues, just had to type password and 2fa and done. I did it in the android app btw.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I did it on android too, but that's not it. As i said, my account was flagged for some reason

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I don't think there's a chance a VoIP number will work at all as Discord detects and purposefully blocks them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

using a free VoIP number isn't an option cause the moment you remove it discord with boot you off again, and keeping it is a huge security risk.

if you're a new discord account it's (in my experience) not possible to go without a verified phone number, their system is too sensitive

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Their system has "triggered successfully", great news everyone! 😃👍

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You should probably use a paid-for burner phone number online that's guaranteed to only be used once. There are many services available.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

i prefer to delete my account than spending money on something that they should've just complied with

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'll keep you updated soon, i'm currently waiting for discord dpo department to respond to my second email explicitely requesting the erasure of my account since in the first email they tried to divert the request into suggesting me to contact the privacy email of Discord, but as we all know that email is just for privacy questions and doesn't do erasures of accounts under specific requests or laws by the sender. It's been one week, they still have more or less three weeks left to respond. If they don't i'll take action and report them to the authorities

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

You use discord. What do you expect?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can you change it in a non existing number.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

No, it needs to be verified