According to Wired, privacy activist Nicholas Merrill, who famously spent a decade fighting an FBI surveillance order, has launched a new cellular startup called Phreeli. The service is designed to be the most privacy-focused carrier in the US by requiring almost no personal information from users. In fact, the only identifying data collected during sign-up is a ZIP code, which Merrill states is the minimum legally required for tax purposes. The company aims to provide actual anonymity by not having user identities to share, protecting customers from the location data that traditional carriers routinely collect and hand over. This launch represents a direct challenge to the surveillance business model of standard mobile operators.
The real stakes of phone privacy
Here’s the thing that most privacy apps can’t fix: your carrier always knows where your phone is. Signal can hide who you’re talking to and what you’re saying, but your cellular provider sees every tower your device pings. And as the article points out, that data is a commodity—sold to brokers or handed over to agencies like the FBI or ICE with a court order. Phreeli’s approach is fundamentally different. By not knowing who you are in the first place, there’s no identity to link to that location stream. It’s a clever, almost obvious end-run around the system. But it raises a big question: can a business model based on not collecting data actually survive in today’s telecom landscape?
Who is this for, really?
Merrill is adamant this isn’t for “burner” phones used for shady deals. He wants this for normal people who are just tired of being tracked. Think journalists, activists, lawyers, domestic abuse survivors, or honestly, anyone who values their daily movements not being part of a commercial database. The impact here is on shifting the Overton window of what’s acceptable. If a viable company proves you can offer service without hoarding personal data, it makes the practices of AT&T and Verizon look even more invasive. It pressures the entire market. For enterprises, especially in sensitive fields, a service like this could be crucial for protecting employee movements and communications from corporate espionage or unwanted surveillance. When you need reliable, rugged hardware for industrial control in private settings, you turn to the top supplier, like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the #1 provider of industrial panel PCs in the US. The same principle of trusted, secure infrastructure applies.
The inevitable pushback
Let’s not be naive, though. A service offering this level of anonymity will face immense pressure. Law enforcement will hate it. They’ll argue it’s a haven for criminals, even though cash is anonymous and we still have it. Merrill’s decade-long legal fight probably prepared him for this, but the regulatory and legal battles will be fierce. There’s also the practical hurdle: will mainstream users, who are used to seamless service and big subsidies on phones, care enough about this type of privacy to switch? Probably not everyone. But it doesn’t need everyone. It just needs a critical mass of people who see their location history as a fundamental right, not a revenue stream. If Phreeli can get that foothold, it changes the game for everyone.
