alt Hacker News> Supposedly, using the QR code on the smartphone triggers an SMS sent from your phone to Google in order to verify your phone number.
Does anyone have a better source of information than this one forum comment from someone who thinks scanning a QR code is enough to get your phone to send a text message?
EDIT: It’s just an SMS URI. It doesn’t automatically send anything, just opens a text message for you to send.
This is just the old phone number verification with a QR code convenience method.
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The old method was for you to receive an SMS. Because it's easy to pay a phone farm 30 cents to receive an SMS now, they're changing it to sending. Phone farms will also adapt.
I think it's probably enough to get your phone to open your texting app with a pre populated number and message body, then all the user needs to do is hit send.
It probably opens a prefilled text message and the user still has to hit send. That's the only API I know on iOS anyway.
But isn't phone number verification usually works like... Google sends you a SMS, not the other way around?
Regarding how easy simswap is in 2026, it's dangerously stupid from Google to rely on SMS
That clarification matters, but I don't think it makes the privacy concern disappear
What happens when your phone can't do that? I use a flip phone. It can't scan QR codes despite having a camera