One of the security features of Facebook was that users could attach their phone numbers to their accounts for 2FA, making it a bit more secure compared to just using a username and password system. Unfortunately it seems that if you do use Facebook’s 2FA system, your profile can be easily found using your phone number.
In a post on Twitter by Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia (via 9to5Mac), he discovered that your phone number can be searchable. “For years Facebook claimed the adding a phone number for 2FA was only for security. Now it can be searched and there’s no way to disable that.” This means that in the event that someone uploads their contacts to Facebook, you will show up as one of their suggested friends if you’ve used your phone number for 2FA purposes.
This also means that in the event where you’re trying to keep your profile as hidden or private as possible, this could still let others find you. Unfortunately as Burge points out, there is no way for users to disable this feature. Instead the best that you can do is to restrict your phone number settings so that only friends can search for it, but by default it is set to “everyone”.
This is also not the first time Facebook has come under fire for how they handle the phone numbers of its users. Last year they were found using 2FA phone numbers for ad targeting. In the meantime if you’d like to change your settings, head on over here where you’ll be able to change “Who can look you up using the phone number you provided?” to just friends.