If someone dies and their phone number is claimed by another person, how can you know that and avoid texting this new person sensitive information — what laws are there around this?
In: 0
The answer is that you may not know and there aren’t any laws that say what must happen exactly when a number is recycled.
This is a possible issue with things like two factor authentication, where a disused phone number may still be attached to an account.
The only laws (that I know exactly apply in the US and Canada, likely similar in other parts of the world) would involve fraud and identity theft. If you were to text me, thinking I was a dead relative and included a social security number, I can ignore it and be completely within the law. If I used it for the purposes of identity theft or fraud, or continued to impersonate a deceased person for those purposes, then an offense has occurred which may be prosecuted.
Latest Answers