A brand new service promises to improve the privacy of Android phones, to prevent data from being exploited. Its goal ? Reduce online user tracking. This is Pretty Good Phone Privacy, or PGPP.
A new company, dubbed Invisv, offers mobile data designed to segregate users with specific credentials. A means to prevent operators or others from being able to access customers’ metadata, location information or mobile navigation. So a way to prevent tracking.
Clearly, the objective is to replace geolocation by IMSI identifier, for International Mobile Subscriber Identity. This identifier is a unique number assigned to the SIM card by the operator which makes it possible to geolocate the users thanks to the relay antennas. And therefore, to authenticate the user and to verify that he has indeed a right of access to the network. It has several digits that can be used to find certain information about the user related to the SIM card, such as the country and their mobile network.
Separate users of specific IDs
As a virtual mobile operator, the company Invisv, at the origin of the Pretty Good Phone Privacy service, makes it possible to transform the connection data of cell phone towers. A Relay service makes it possible to dissociate the IP address of a user from his web browsing. And therefore, to separate users from their metadata, location or navigation information. Thus, by dissociating authentication and network connection, the monitoring of users by mobile operators becomes increasingly difficult.
Operation is relatively simple. A gateway, called “PGPP-GW”, intercepts access tokens from subscribers, called “PGPP Tokens”. Invisv distributes them beforehand and they are not linked to the identity of the subscriber. Note that the Invisv service currently only works with compatible Android devices with eSIM technology.
Two packages
Invisv offers the “Mobile Pro” PGPP plan for $90 per month. It offers users 30 random IMSI number changes per month. Changes can be made automatically or on demand. Namely, neither Invisv nor cell towers know which IMSI the user is. The “Mobile Core” plan offers eight IMSI number changes per month for $40 per month and 9 GB of high-speed data per month.
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