Facebook is confronting new reaction over how it ensures user phone numbers when they give them to security purposes.
On Friday, Jeremy Burge, who runs the website Emojipedia, posted a tweet guaranteeing numbers added to utilize two-factor authentication—a secure login process requiring two stages before getting to a record—were currently searchable.
“For years Facebook claimed … adding a phone number for 2FA was only for security. Now it can be searched and there’s no way to disable that,” Burge wrote.
Burge said Facebook sets its default for phone number search to everyone, and there’s no way to fully opt out.
At the point when a client agrees to accept two-factor authentication, they give extra data to affirm their identity, such as a phone number or email address. On account of Facebook, they can utilize a phone number to content a security code user must sort after they sign in to affirm their identity. Normally, phone numbers accommodated this don’t show up on client profiles.
Security master Zeynep Tufekci impacted Facebook for the move, asserting it could put individuals in danger. “Using security to further weaken privacy is a lousy move—especially since phone numbers can be hijacked to weaken security,” she wrote on Twitter.
In a statement, Facebook said the settings for its “who can look me up” option are not new and “not specific” to two-factor authentication.
“In April 2018, we removed the ability to enter another person’s phone number or email address into the Facebook search bar to help find someone’s profile,” Facebook said. “Today, the ‘Who can look me up?’ settings control how your phone number or email address can be used to look you up in other ways, such as when someone uploads your contact info to Facebook from their mobile phone.”
A year ago, Facebook expelled the alternative to utilize your phone number when agreeing to accept two-factor authentication.
This isn’t the first run through Facebook has gotten into inconvenience for how it handles phone numbers utilized exclusively for two-factor confirmation. The previous fall, as indicated by TechCrunch,Facebook admitted it used phone numbers users offered for security to target them with ads.
