Two-step authentication is the most step to secure your account on social media. But on Facebook, it could impact your account privacy. It came to spotlight after a complaint from a user complaining that Facebook required a phone number for two-factor authentication. Facebook’s data usage is once again in the news for all the wrong reasons. This time with two-step authentication, what happens to your phone number when adding two-factor authentication.
Facebook has been using two-factor authentication since 2011. Facebook says phone number added to an account are included areas outside of two-factor authentication. Actually, Facebook is using phone numbers for more than security purposes. It uses it in Ad Targeting, allowing the other users to find the corresponding user profile by typing the phone number in the search bar.
There is no option to disable the tool where other users of Facebook users can get profile by typing your phone number in the search bar. Users can adjust their privacy settings from “everyone” to “friends,” But there is no option to disable it entirely. He also pointed out Facebook shares the given phone number with Instagram and WhatsApp.
So what to do now?
If you already provided your phone number to Facebook, then there is no option to delete it. Facebook also collects phone number whenever a user could give Facebook access to their contacts.
If you haven’t added your phone number, then you can use third apps like Google Authenticator and LastPass to generate a unique code instead of a phone number.
