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Facebook has been asking me to add my mobile number to secure my account. It even prepopulated the input field with my mobile number that I never shared with th
by _Microft 9y ago
Facebook has been asking me to add my mobile number to secure my account. It even prepopulated the input field with my mobile number that I never shared with them! My best guess is that their app farmed it out of the phone adress book of one of my friends. Either way, they definitely overstepped the mark here, in my opinion.
- exhilaration 9y agoDo you use Whatsapp? Unless you opted out during the short window they offered during the summer, Facebook got all your Whatsapp contacts and data, and that of course includes your phone number: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-stop-whatsapp-from-sharing-your-information-with-facebook/ https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-stop-whatsapp-from-sharin...
- _Microft 9y agoI do not but a number of my friends are using the Facebook Messenger, Facebook App and Whatsapp.
- netsharc 9y agoIt'd be very easy for Facebook to cross-reference multiple address books (even 1 would be enough) and create "virtual profiles". E.g. if Alice is not part of the Facebook/Whatsapp ecosystem but Bob, Charlie and Donna are, and they all have Alice's phone number (unique identifier!) on their phone. If all 4 hang out together a lot and Bob, Charlie and Donna upload a lot of pictures of all of them, and they diligently tag people who have accounts, then Facebook can probably figure out the 4th person (which face they've stored for their recognition engine) is probably Alice. And if Alice, like the poster, never gave Facebook her phone number, but Bob, Charlie and Donna have it under "Alice Lastname", and they're all friends with Alice Lastname on Facebook, Facebook can probably be certain to say "Store your phone number, we think this is it.". Or to word that properly, "Confirm your number, although we already know this is it."