#facebook will stop using 2FA tool to harvest phone numbers for friend suggestions
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Facebook says it will soon stop its practice of using phone numbers provided to the company as part of its two-factor authentication (2FA) security tool to power a friend suggestion feature, Reuters reported on Thursday. According to the report, Facebook was using phone numbers users gave it specifically to protect their accounts from unauthorized access to try and encourage them to add members of their address book to their friends list.
The company says the change is part of its broader privacy overhaul in response to a $5 billion Federal Trade Commission settlement reached in July over Facebook’s privacy practices. As part of that settlement, Facebook was barred from using phone numbers gathered from 2FA requests for advertising….
