It seems like every week we learn something new about the privacy settings on all of the apps we use.
This week it's Facebook's turn to take some flack, as we've just found out that people can obtain a lot of your personal info via your phone number.
Before we get into how this is happening, it's important to remember that with all of these privacy issues we're as much to blame as the companies who employ them. If you really feel that passionately about your privacy, then read the terms and conditions in full, or alternatively, don't use a social media platform that aims to share information about you.
Having said that, this is a still a bit scary. Obviously we knew that by putting in your number into Facebook it would show up on your profile and people could see it. But it turns out that if you hide it for just your friends, or even for yourself alone, the default setting for who can search for the number is set to anyone.
The software engineer who found the flaw, Reza Moaiandin, likened it to "walking into a bank, asking for a few thousand customers’ personal information based on their account number, and the bank telling you: “Here are their customer details.”
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Basically this means that simply by typing in random phone letters into Facebook you can find people's names and photos, as well as whatever other info they allow the public to see.
So if you don't fancy giving your info out to the entire world, you can change your Who Can Search For Me status by heading over to here.
Via The Guardian
