Two-factor authentication(2FA) is an additional layer of security used by many popular apps like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to ensure that your account is safe from unknown access. While the feature is said to make your account more secure across the web, the case is different for Facebook’s 2FA.
The problem is that Facebook is apparently using those phone numbers for the purpose we intended (account security), but also, well, for other things. Jeremy Burge, who runs the Emojipedia website, called attention to this in a series of tweets in recent days in which he notes that you can now apparently search user profiles via the phone numbers users have provided — and that there seems to be no way for users to tell Facebook to not allow this.
The default setup for Facebook’s 2FA asks for your phone number — yet this same number can apparently be searched for on the social network to find your profile page. From there, a person can see whatever else is publicly viewable on that page, like where you live, who your friends and family are, and your opinions on anything that you’ve talked about on Facebook in the past.
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