How to hide your phone’s IMEI number from the lock screen — and why you should
This can potentially help you recover a lost or stolen device by providing easy proof of ownership, but because there are ways for bad actors to exploit an exposed IMEI, it’s also something of a security risk.Making your device identifier accessible from the lock screen is optional, though. Here’s what you need to know, and how to change the relevant setting on your own phone. Do you want your phone's IMEI number(s) to be accessible from the lock screen?0 votesYes, it's insurance in case I lose my phone.NaN%No, it's too big a security risk.NaN%What’s an IMEI number and why hide it?Edgar Cervantes / Android AuthorityIMEI stands for International Mobile Equipment Identity.
- ▪This can potentially help you recover a lost or stolen device by providing easy proof of ownership, but because there are ways for bad actors to exploit an exposed IMEI, it’s also something of a security risk.Making your device identifier a
- ▪Here’s what you need to know, and how to change the relevant setting on your own phone.
- ▪Do you want your phone's IMEI number(s) to be accessible from the lock screen?0 votesYes, it's insurance in case I lose my phone.NaN%No, it's too big a security risk.NaN%What’s an IMEI number and why hide it?Edgar Cervantes / Android Author
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| Original publisher | Android Authority |
| Canonical URL | https://www.androidauthority.com/hide-imei-from-lock-screen-3712048/ |
| Publication time | Fri, 25 Sep 2026 09:30:54 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-25T09:35:34.481Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-25T09:35:34.481Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | CLdjMA3LqkXQ · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Android Authority.
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