What Is CPNI? Phone Privacy, Marketing Choices and Account Security

CPNI means Customer Proprietary Network Information: details a telephone carrier learns through providing your service. It includes call destinations, timing and duration, service configuration and certain billing information. It is about how your service is used, rather than the words spoken in a conversation.

Account privacy and account security work together. Our guides to two-factor authentication and checking for an email data breach explain related protections.

What counts as CPNI?

Federal law defines the category around the type, location, destination, configuration and amount of telecommunications service a customer uses, along with certain telephone-bill information. Call records are a familiar example. Subscriber-list information is excluded from the statutory definition. AT&T's privacy notice, for example, distinguishes CPNI from your name, address and phone number; that distinction does not mean those other details are unrestricted or unimportant.

Why your carrier has it

Your carrier needs service information to connect calls, manage the account and calculate charges. Section 222 permits uses needed to deliver and bill for service and to address fraud or unlawful use. Other uses and disclosures depend on the applicable rules, your approval and legal exceptions. A carrier's privacy notice should explain the choices it offers; one marketing switch does not control every kind of data the company holds.

How to review marketing choices

Open your carrier's official website or app directly, sign in and find the privacy or CPNI settings. Read what each option changes before saving it. If the setting is unclear, contact the customer-service number on your bill and ask which marketing uses you can restrict. Save the confirmation and check the settings again after changing a plan or combining accounts.

AT&T says customers can restrict its use of CPNI for marketing without affecting their service, and that the choice stays in place until changed. It also says customers may still receive marketing. Other carriers have their own controls; do not assume that a CPNI opt-out cancels all advertising, deletes billing records or prevents the carrier from operating your account.

Protect the phone number as well

In a SIM-swap scam, an attacker persuades a carrier to move your number to a SIM they control. A port-out scam moves the number to another carrier. Either can expose text-message verification codes. Privacy preferences alone do not stop an account takeover.

• Set a strong, unique account password and carrier PIN.
• Ask whether your carrier offers number lock, port-out protection or a separate transfer PIN; follow its instructions.
• Where available, use an authenticator app or security key for important accounts instead of relying only on SMS codes.
• Keep verification codes private and access the carrier through a trusted app, bill or saved official address.

The FTC recommends contacting your carrier immediately if you suspect a SIM swap. If service disappears unexpectedly or a notice says your SIM changed without permission, use another phone to reach the carrier and request account recovery. Once control is restored, change account passwords and review affected financial accounts. See our scam-call guide for related precautions.

If a privacy notice or breach worries you

Use contact details you independently trust rather than a link or number in an unexpected message. Ask the carrier what information was involved and which steps apply to your account. Keep copies of notices and support records. The FCC's consumer complaint process includes a Privacy category for phone-service issues. Reporting a concern does not itself recover a number or secure an account; contact the carrier promptly for that work.

For help comparing internet at your address, call RSINC at 1-877-697-2926 or compare local providers.

Reviewed October 29, 2026. Availability, prices and terms can change.