Phoning home could be for purposes of access control, such as transmitting an authorization key. It could also be for marketing purposes, such as the "Sony BMG Rootkit", which transmits a hash of the currently playing CD back to Sony, or a digital video recorder (DVR) reporting on viewing habits. High-end computing systems such as mainframes have had 'phone home' capabilities for many years, to alert the manufacturer of hardware problems with the mainframes or disk storage subsystems (this enables repair or maintenance to be performed quickly and even proactively under the maintenance contract).

Aside from malicious software phoning home, phoning home may be done to track computer assets—especially mobile computers. One of the most well-known software applications that leverages phoning home for tracking is Absolute Software's CompuTrace. This software employs an agent which calls into an Absolute-managed server on regular intervals with information companies or the police can use to locate a missing computer.