Facebook is revealing User’s Phone numbers through ‘Two-Factor Authentication’

Facebook, once again is in limelight over revealing user’s data. Emojipedia editor, Jeremy Burge has said that number added to two-factor authentication(2FA) is now searchable. “Facebook 2FA numbers are also shared with Instagram which prompts you ‘is this your phone number?’ once you add to FB. Whatsapp also shares phone numbers with Facebook. Facebook shares phone numbers with advertisers,” claims Burge in a series of tweets.

“Facebook has always claimed that phone numbers added to 2FA was only for security. Now, these numbers can be searched and there is no way to disable,” he added

“Two-Factor authentication is an important security feature, and last year we added the option to set it up for your account without registering a phone number. Separately, the ‘Who can look me up?’ settings are not new and are not specific to 2FA”, Facebook said.

In April 2018, we removed the ability to enter another person’s phone number or e-mail address into the Facebook search bar to help find someone’s profile,” it said.

The 2FA feature – meant solely to authenticate your identity on the social media platform – may have left your phone number open for other’s to see, even to advertisers to bombard you with their ads.

Source: The Times of India