Your Android phone may have linked your SIM number to every Google account signed in on the device, including work and secondary accounts, without asking for explicit confirmation. The behavior returned to the spotlight after an Engadget report published on October 24, 2026, and it is documented in Google's own support page.
According to that documentation, phone number verification is on by default: Google verifies the number during device setup and adds it to every Google account signed in on the phone. The rule covers current and future accounts, and also future numbers: an account added later picks up the device's numbers, and switching SIM cards puts the new number on every account.
This is not a new feature. Android Authority found that the documentation was amended between August and October 2025 to state that verification is the default, and a Google Play services changelog dated September 8, 2025 lists automatic verification at setup. Many people are only finding out now because they started receiving unprompted emails from noreply-phone-verification@google.com saying their number had been verified.
Google says verification supports account recovery, RCS messaging, phone number sign-in, finding a lost device, emergency location services and Quick Share. Turning verification on also enables Better sharing on Google for one of the signed-in accounts, for video calls, messages and notifications about content sent to the number.
To stop automatic verification, the reported path is: Settings, Google, All services, Privacy and security, Phone number verification, and turn off Verify phone numbers automatically. On some phones, the Google section may be labeled Google services and preferences. Note: turning the switch off does not remove numbers already linked. You need to check account by account, under Personal info, Phone, and manually remove anything that should not be there.
There are trade-offs. According to Kaspersky, disabling verification means losing RCS chats in Google Messages, which fall back to SMS, and a number without verification cannot be used for quick account recovery. There are also user reports that the switch turned itself back on after being disabled. That is a user report, not a problem confirmed by Google, but it is reason enough to check the setting again a few days later.
One more important detail: reports are not uniform, and not every secondary account visibly shows the number. The practical advice is therefore not to trust a headline, but to audit each account. Google says it does not sell personal data, including phone numbers, to anyone. Whether to keep automatic verification on is ultimately the user's decision, but it should be an informed one.
Image credit: Jetcityimage/Getty Images, via Engadget.
Fontes / Sources: Engadget; Malwarebytes; Gadget Hacks.
Transparency: this article was produced with the help of artificial intelligence, drawing on public posts and the internet sources cited above. Check the original sources to confirm the details.
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