Understand number masking

Number masking is a service designed to protect the privacy of individuals or businesses when communicating over phone calls. It works by assigning a temporary or virtual phone number to the user, which acts as a proxy or intermediary between the caller and the recipient. When calls are made using this number, the recipient sees only the masked number on their caller ID, rather than the user's actual phone number. This masking helps to maintain the privacy of the user's personal or business phone number, preventing it from being exposed to unknown or potentially untrusted parties. Number masking is commonly used in scenarios such as ride sharing, online transactions, classified ads, customer service calls, or any situation where individuals or businesses want to communicate without revealing their personal contact information.

The Number Masking service enables two parties to engage in a conversation over the phone without exposing real phone numbers to one another. This service is ideal for businesses that want to avoid sharing end user information with third parties. It joins two calls using a Voice number instead of the end-user's real phone number.

The key features of the Infobip number masking product include customizable caller IDs, call recording, customizable announcements, and analytics to track communication activity.

For more information, see How Number Masking Provides Privacy and Anonymity.

High-level number masking flow

Number masking is a service on the Infobip platform that can be enabled for inbound calls.

When the Infobip platform receives an inbound call, it sends a callback request to your platform, which will respond with the action to be taken on that call:

• Playing an audio file: your number masking application logic may determine that this inbound call should not be connected to another participant and instead play an audio file to the caller after which the call will be hung up
• Dial an external number and bridge the calls once answered. This action may be combined with recording settings so the whole number masking session will be recorded.

When the number masking call is finalized, Infobip sends a status message to your platform with the session details. For example, whether the call was answered, the duration of the call, the phone number involved in that conversation, and so on.