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Comment by KevinMS | Hacker News Reader

I can understand the motivation. I've had the same number since the 90's and never once got a spam call until I was in the hospital last year and since then I've been getting 2-3 a day every day. They've probably left at least a thousand voice mails for a great loan opportunity, all from different numbers and different loan amounts.

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Then the FCC have hid this well - they don't want this to stop spam they want it to link phone numbers to people.

If they wanted to stop spam they'd fix it so that carriers were required to ensure the numbers aren't spoofed. This would stop spam overnight.

"phone number?"

"i dont have a phone"

"emergency contact?"

"911, no one else is better suited to respond to an emergency?"

Medical establishments are notorious for asking for lots of information they do not need.

For example, every hospital and office I've been to asks for my Social Security Number, yet none have said anything when I leave it blank.

I found myself in front of the hospital representative and they started asking for marital status and religion. I had to shake it off and say, "What? I'm not giving you that information"

(I can see for if you die / etc but still)

Personal anecdata: I get much more spam calls on a number from a country with mandatory ID sim card registration than on a number from a country where anonymous sim cards are allowed. Both numbers are almost 20 years old and I barely use them for anything but calls/sms to friends/relatives and receiving bank 2FA SMSes.

Personal anecdote from my wife yesterday. She doesn’t get many spam calls but has noticed that when a particular friend calls her, she gets a spam call later that day. I surmised that the friend has some spyware on their phone which is reporting “active” numbers.

Probably a coincidence. I didn't get any spam calls either, until I did.

Sometimes they'd screw up their message and call me "patient", and once even called me "file".

>until I was in the hospital last year

So much for HIPAA huh?

Science opportunity! >:]

Get yourself locked up in the slammer for a night while carrying a fresh burner; observe them writing down your IMEI and IMSI; see if that makes you start getting robocalls.

Phone numbers aren't protected health information.

Is the fact that I was in the hospital protected health information? If not, why not?

I wouldn't blame the hospital.

It was documented years ago that lawyers were buying cell phone location data from the carriers in order to drum up potential clients in hospitals.

Blame the data industry and big tech.

And lawyers.

It probably is today. There was a time when hospital admissions/discharges were published in the local paper.

As a population we used to be a lot less concerned with privacy. It was nicer in a way. It was a time when you didn't really worry about your identity getting leaked or stolen. If someone knew you were in the hospital, they might send you flowers or a card.

> Phone numbers aren't protected health information.

Yes they are:

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-45/part-164/section-164.5...

HIPPA doesn't do anything to protect your medical privacy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sfIBRTcRpU).

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