One telecom carrier is fixing a major privacy problem you probably don't know about

A telecom operator is trying to fix a major privacy problem that many of us are unaware about.

Vodafone, India’s second largest telecom operator by subscribers, has introduced a new way for its subscribers—especially women—to top up talktime credit to their phones, without disclosing their phone number to strangers.

The new program, called Private Recharge Mode, allows people to add credit to their phones with a unique code instead of their phone number.

It might sound like a nonissue to many, but in India, where over 90% of the billion mobile phone users are on prepaid connection, walk into mom-and-pop shops and hand out their phone numbers to top up their accounts.

Unsurprisingly, this has become a nightmare situation for many women. Earlier this month, we reported how some shopkeepers were "selling" phone numbers of girls at a nominal fee.

Vodafone is curtailing this by introducing a new system to top credits to phone numbers, locally known as "recharging the phone." For this, any user can send a toll free text with "Private" in the body to 12604 to receive a code they can use within 24 hours.

Now, the person only has to share this code—and not their phone number—to get credit topped to their phone number.

Vodafone has introduced this service in the state of West Bengal for now. Earlier this month, it introduced a similar program called "Sakhi" (means female friend in Hindi) in the western region of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand to allow women to have money added to their phone number using a similar method.

As part of Sakhi program, Vodafone also allows women to make an emergency call for as long as 10 minutes even when they don’t have any credit balance in their account.