Facebook stole every contact and phone number in your phone – here's how to undo the damage

By on Aug 12, 2011 at 11:15 AM
Featured August 12, 2011

This may come as a shock considering how seriously Facebook takes your privacy, but if you’re a Facebook user with one of Facebook’s mobile applications installed on your iPhone or one of several other smartphones, you’ve been robbed. Each and every contact stored on your phone is probably now also stored on Facebook’s servers, as was re-re-rediscovered by Facebook users this past week. Whether or not people in your contact list even have Facebook accounts, their names and phone numbers are likely now in Facebook’s possession. There is probably a clause buried deep within Facebook’s terms and conditions that makes this invasion of your privacy OK on paper, but odds are still pretty good that it’s not OK with you. Complete instructions outlining how to remove all of your contacts’ phone numbers from your Facebook account can be found below. Whether or not the data will be completely wiped from Facebook’s servers is unclear, but we’ll leave that for the lawyers to figure out.

UPDATE: A Facebook spokesperson delivered the following official statement to BGR via email: “Rumors claiming that your phone contacts are visible to everyone on Facebook are false. Our Contacts list, formerly called Phonebook, has existed for a long time. The phone numbers listed there were either added directly to Facebook and shared with you by your friends, or you have previously synced your phone contacts with Facebook. Just like on your phone, only you can see these numbers.”

  1. Visit facebook.com from a PC and log in
  2. in the top-right corner of the screen, click on Account and then Edit Friends
  3. In the menu on the left side of the screen, click on Contacts
  4. Here, you will see that each and every one of your contacts in Address Book are listed along with their phone numbers… wipe the look of shock and disgust from your face
  5. On the right side of the screen, click on the “this page” link
  6. Follow the instructions on this page — you’ll have to disable contact-sync in Facebook’s mobile app if it’s enabled — and click the Remove button

Note: Many users note that Facebook’s mobile apps now carry disclaimers that mention the fact that Facebook is taking your data. Of course Facebook does currently include a disclaimer, though the wording makes no mention of this data being stored on its servers until manually deleted by the user. Even still, this has not been the case with all versions of the app, and there are also numerous reports from users who claim to have never synchronized their contacts with Facebook’s mobile apps, yet still find all of their contact data stored on Facebook’s servers.

Thanks, Kamar

Tags:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
289 Comments

Related Articles

  • Anonymous

    Anybody here ever hear of something called a “phone book”? 

    If you truly want privacy, stay off of the internet.  

  • http://twitter.com/timmywhat Timmy

    For crying out loud

  • Peter

    It looks like they already got in shit for it and updated the app to have contact syncing off by default so you have to opt-in for it. When I followed their instructions to remove my contacts and disable sync, I found sync was already disabled in the app, though some of my contacts (not all) had already been synced.

  • Anonymous

    Can SOMEONE PLEASE tell me how to get back in? Someone fucked up my log in. Now FaceBook asking for my ID to send to them cause I’m locked out and don’t want them TO give out my info. Been locked out for two months now can’t even log back into my page.

  • Mtpmdude

    Facebook’s goals are not to be confused with social networking. Their goal is to know and profit from all of the information they can collect from their users.

  • Jackson Bloomston

    The Quote of the Year was just found on THIS comment thread:

    via @Internet4porn 3 days ago in reply to chripuck

    “…I hate 2011. Year of fake nerds.”

    ROFL

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jolly-Roger/100002683527217 Jolly Roger

    Umm… Bad grammar and spelling are pretty much common speak on the internets now. Ya’ll just need to get used to it and stop bitching so much.

    • Benny

      You’re so wrong. This “feature” is only found in certain types of fora or shall I say comon among a certain category of users? Spelling and grammar simply tell people who you are … or are not.

  • Werewolfitis

    Really? I mean, after years of submitting my information all over the internet I’m supposed to be surprised? I’m not, mostly because this isn’t true. 

  • http://www.screamingtips.com/ Imran Soudagar

    Thanks for making us aware about this serious matter. Awesome post.

  • Iain

    I have over 600 friends on facebook. Only 68 of them are listed with numbers who I’d like to add, none of whom are on my mobile phone so I think whoever thinks that Facebook is stealing phone numbers out of your mobile phone needs their head examining.
    The people who supply their mobile number on their profile page will be the ones you get listed in your “contacts”, as those friends have put those numbers there to share with you.
    Like Beri says, “Understand it before you make a fool of yourself”!!

  • Kre8eur

    Jesus people! It syncs the info ON YOUR PHONE to the contact info on you friend list… Not the other way around. I have numbers in my phone that don’t show up online; and numbers online that don’t show up in my phone. It puts the Facebook page and picture to the contact in your phone for clean look and ease of use! Oh and if a contact in your phone doesn’t EXACTLY match one on your Facebook guess what? It does NOTHING. people are acting outraged when they are unsure of what is going on and in the meantime are putting their own info all over the net anyway. The ONLY thing the app does is puts YOUR NUMBER TO YOUR OWN PAGE. Change it and be aware of your settings instead of ignorantly and obliviously stumbling around your life.

  • Kre8eur

    As for those using a mobile but claiming they used a fake number… It doesn’t work that way. You can’t fake the hardware that’s communicating with it. You can put a fake number on the comp but not from the mobile and yea I was a little taken aback when I didnt realize I had allowed the app to post my number on my page. Go change it if you want. In the meantime just realize the a mobile number isn’t the only way to communicate with a mobile device and that serial and sim numbers are all over and none of you is even remotely aware of where the info goes or who has it.

    For instance my number is four months old and I got a collection call This week from a company about a year old bill At an address I lived at but they had listed it with a 5 year old address on it, when I never publicized or

  • Kre8eur

    Left the info with ANY company. So you should worry more about that Kind of thing I think. Btw this site fucking sucks for iphone

  • Sujit89

    facebook have been making changes lately may i know where its is now?

  • No numbers..

    do you guys know how to get those lists after the UI changes?

  • Lil Wayne

    They updated Facebook so these settings don’t work anymore, I removed all of the numbers but they kept recommending the same people from my phone book

1 … 5 6 7
blog comments powered by Disqus