Wilcox has long been part of a niche group of privacy advocates who purchase their SIM cards with cash and under assumed names. He believes that Phreeli could provide a simpler solution—not only for individuals like him but also for the general public.
“I don’t know of anybody who’s ever offered this credibly before,” Wilcox stated. “Not the usual telecom-strip-mining-your-data phone, not a black-hoodie hacker phone, but a privacy-is-normal phone.”
Despite this optimism, many tech companies have marketed privacy as a selling point, leading skeptical consumers to question the legitimacy of a for-profit telecom like Phreeli claiming to offer anonymity. However, Cohn from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) notes that the founder, Merrill, has a credible history in the privacy space. “Having watched Nick for a long time, it’s all a means to an end for him,” Cohn explained. “And the end is privacy for everyone.”
Describing Phreeli as a cellular provider where every phone acts like a burner phone raises significant implications. Nonetheless, it is clear that some customers may use the service’s privacy features for unlawful activities, similar to how users have exploited various surveillance-resistant tools like Signal and Tor, or even cash.
Merrill asserts that Phreeli will not serve as a platform for spammers or robocallers. He emphasized that the company will implement limits on the number of calls and texts to curb misuse and will ban users who appear to manipulate the system. “If people think this is going to be a safe haven for abusing the phone network, that’s not going to work,” Merrill commented.
While Merrill acknowledges that some customers may engage in illicit activities, he draws a comparison to pay phones—anonymity-driven, cash-based services that were once prevalent in American cities. “You put a quarter in, you didn’t need to identify yourself, and you could call whoever you wanted,” he reminisced. He argued that “99.9 percent of the time, people weren’t doing bad stuff.” He contends that the small number of individuals who misused these services did not warrant the widespread loss of privacy in today’s cellular landscape, where phone calls tied to identifiable data have become exceedingly rare.
