Google is quietly linking your phone number to every account on your Android device

The first sign for one Reddit user was an unexpected email from Google. Sent from [email protected], it said their phone number had been verified even though they had not initiated the process. The message carried the subject line ‘Making sure you can stay connected’.

In October 2026, users began discovering that a phone number on an Android device had been attached automatically to multiple Google Accounts signed in on that device. Google’s phone number verification feature is enabled by default, and it adds the number to every signed-in account, including work accounts and throwaway accounts.

That matters for people who use separate accounts for personal, work and secondary identities. The automatic connection can collapse that account compartmentalisation, a privacy concern for users who had kept those identities apart on the same device.

Google documented the policy in support pages updated between August and October 2025. Those pages said verification was enabled by default and that a verified number would be added to every Google Account signed in on the device. A visible rollout followed a September 2025 Google system update.

Digit staff members also found that the auto-verify setting had been switched on quietly on their devices. The October 2026 emails made the change more visible, though the feature had already been operating as an opt-out default.

The system has two verification routes. It can use legacy Type 0 silent SMS and baseband queries, or newer services through GSMA Open Gateway and the Camara API. Its newer primary method sends an encrypted token containing device and SIM identifiers to a carrier, which returns the confirmed phone number. Google and carriers periodically reverify numbers, and the system relies on RCS.

Users can turn the feature off through Settings > Google > All services > Privacy & security > Phone number verification. That choice blocks future automatic links. It does not remove numbers already added to accounts.

To clear existing links, users must manually delete the number from each account’s Contact info under Device phone numbers on the Google Account personal-information page. Some users said the setting turned itself back on after they had disabled it, although Android Authority said it could not reproduce that behaviour. There is also a toggle bug related to the feature.

The security concern sits alongside the privacy issue. SIM swaps are a related risk, and disabling automatic phone-number linking eliminates the risk of hackers gaining access to all accounts at once through that shared connection.