O2 revealing users' mobile phone numbers, tests suggest

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O2 has been accused of exposing the phone numbers of customers who browse the internet using its mobile data. Lewis Peckover, a system administrator for a mobile gaming company, said that he was "absolutely shocked" to discover the issue. The Information Commissioner's Office said that it would speak to O2 "to better understand what has happened". In a statement O2 said: "We are investigating and we'll update as soon as we can." According to Mr Peckover, when a user connects to a webpage using mobile data, information is passed to the site including the mobile phone number.
Mr Peckover told the BBC that he made the discovery yesterday. "We found that whenever you visit any website, O2 are sending your plain text easy-to-read, easy-to-capture, full mobile phone number to every site you visit."

To demonstrate the flaw, he set up an online script which allows users to see if their number is revealed.....Read more here-: BBC News - O2 revealing users mobile phone numbers, tests suggest

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Re: O2 revealing users' mobile phone numbers, tests suggest

O2 Says Sorry For Mobile Web Privacy Error

Mobile provider O2 has apologised for an error with its service that resulted in some customers' phone numbers being shared with websites they visited while browsing on 3G.

Whenevera mobile user accesses a website from their phone they share information about that device with the site. It usually includes the web browser and the model of phone being used to allow the website to display its information in a way that suits your device. However, O2's mobile network in the UK was also including the phone number of some users in the data. Malicious websites could use the information to target users with spam texts or scams. O2 said the problem, which occured over the past 15 days, has been investigated and fixed. In a statement on its blog, the company said: "Security is of the utmost importance to us and we take the protection of our customers' data extremely seriously.

"We have seen the report suggesting the potential for disclosure of customers' mobile phone numbers to website owners. "We investigated, identified and fixed it this afternoon. We would like to apologise for the concern we have caused." O2 added it was in contact with the communications regulator Ofcom and the...Read more here--: O2 Mobile Web Privacy: Provider Says Sorry After Phone Numbers Shared With Websites