An average person spends around 36% of their life online. Maintaining privacy is difficult when you are living in a tech-enabled world. Each time you purchase online, read news, engage on social media, or download an app to your smartphone, you are leaving behind digital traces that can accumulate into a massive data footprint during your lifetime.
However, there are benefits to this involuntary data legacy, which is particularly apparent when you need to find out more about other individuals. Today, just a phone number is enough to uncover a person’s identity. Widely known as reverse phone search, this practice can become useful and may even save your life in various instances.
Practical Uses of Reverse Number Search
Searching for personal details of a stranger using a contact number could seem an intrusive habit at first glance. But certain circumstances may more than warrant it. Here are a few practical, real-life examples.
- Finding people
Tracking down a friend or family member you have lost touch with could be easier with a reverse number search.
- Online dating
According to statistics, 11% of online daters are married. A quick verification of marital status before meeting a potential online suitor could save you from a lot of heartache.
- Spam and scams
Anonymous calls can threaten your privacy and safety. But if you can identify them with a reverse number search, you can easily block or avoid them.
Ways to Find Information with Just a Phone Number
Here are four proven ways to uncover personal information using a contact number, each with its merits and drawbacks.
1. Search engines
The World Wide Web could host countless resources containing information about the person you wish to get to know. These can include personal blogs, company websites, forums, and news sites.
Search engines can help you sift through the trillions of online web pages and discover the relevant ones in under a second. Google, which claims 85% of the search market, is an excellent place to start. But you can try one or more other search engines, too.
To search, type in the number within quotation marks and try different variations of it using spaces and dashes.
Pros: Search engines allow unlimited free searches and can list relevant results within a fraction of a second.
Cons: These sites can list hundreds and thousands of search results that ultimately may not even produce useful information. Their algorithms prioritize results based on relevance, which could vastly differ from your expectations. Moreover, going through each site can consume a substantial amount of time, with no guarantee of the extent of truly relevant data you can discover.
Also, keep in mind that their SERPs will only list pages that their bots have crawled. Some pages will be left out due to technical issues or when web crawling is deliberately blocked. Moreover, you cannot view data on pages that use login credentials, memberships, and payments to control information access.
2. Social media
Some social media users list their phone numbers on their profile pages. And certain social media sites, including Facebook and Instagram, allow you to search for them. But similar to search engines, you must try different number formats using spaces and dashes to find relevant results.
Pros: These search services are free and unlimited. Besides user profiles, they may also find comments and posts containing the number you searched for.
Cons: You will often need a user account to search on these platforms. When you are logged in, there is also a risk of data collection. And when displaying results, they will not list profiles marked as private or image-based posts that contain the phone number.
3. Reverse Number Search Platforms
These are specialized platforms that act as data aggregators. They collect individual data from numerous public sources to compile detailed reports that are discoverable using a phone number search.
Many reverse search sites will help you identify a name, address, email address, social media, and a range of other information. However, the exact type of details you can find will depend on the platform you use. PhoneHistory, for instance, can provide the entire timeline of a phone number’s history, so you can uncover information about its current and previous owners.
Pros: These sites collate relevant information into a single report. This saves you the time and hassle of going through countless web pages, identifying relevant data, and compiling it.
All searches are completely anonymous. And databases are updated regularly to ensure you get the latest and most up-to-date information. The massive extent of the data they can provide, from an individual’s education and profession to their criminal history, is another distinct advantage.
Cons: Some reverse search sites are slower than your average search engine. Some can even take up to a minute to generate their reports. Depending on the platform you choose, you may also need to pay a fee to access detailed information.
4. Caller ID Apps
These mobile applications can help you identify a name and registered location of a contact number. Their functionality may be simple. But they can be especially useful for recognizing scam and spam callers. This is because caller ID apps often rely on user-generated databases with features to flag troublesome callers.
Pros: You can install them on your smartphone and search numbers straightaway. This makes them an easily accessible tool.
They also come equipped with additional features. For example, they can instantly identify unsaved numbers as and when you receive calls. These apps can even monitor your SMS messages and block spam and scam callers.
Cons: Many caller ID apps don’t verify their user-generated databases. As a result, there could be an element of inaccuracy at times. The limited information they can provide about a phone number is another drawback when you need more details.
To Conclude
There are many instances you would want to reverse search an individual using their phone number—you may need to know more about a person before going on a date or look up a suspicious caller to avoid a scam.
Search engines, social media sites, reverse number search platforms, and caller ID apps can all get the job done in these situations. But the techniques they apply and the information they can retrieve could greatly vary. So, assess their merits and drawbacks before selecting the best option for your specific requirement.
