99+% of every single person you meet has either FB, IG or WA installed on their phones and shares their phonebooks with them (assuming you live in [insert western country here]). There is also a very big chance at least some have your full name and address in their phonebook. Facebook not only knows who you are, but also who you are in contact with, when you meet new people and who they are. They also collect phone and text records with their apps so they also know the frequency that you have contact with them and they can even read the content of text messages (most people these permissions to the apps because it will automatically verify the associated phone number). Add all the location data, ssid/mac address collection and countless of other datapoints to it and they can draw out your entire life even when you don't use anything from facebook. There is no escape.
Aside from China, Japan and Korea, do such countries exist?
citation very much needed
Get a virtual phone number if any service requires a phone number from you. Don't submit to this nonsense.
They are like the credit companies, they have information on you whether you allow them to or not.
The only way is to have a separate set of email, phone numbers, for those family and friends who doesn't care about privacy and security, that way it is easy to dispose those information later.
Beyond that … if we truly want to avoid it … the only course of action is to not give them anything at all. Not a single email, not a single phone number, not even our home addresses.
Hmm, not many of my friends have my phone number either. I don't usually use phone with friends. Come to think of it I almost never use phone, I always use FB, WeChat, LINE, Hangouts, etc. for voice calls, and sometimes just use a straight up WebRTC call.
I suppose one way to alleviate this for the masses is that when giving your number to a friend, have them use a pseudonym that is easy to remember for them and not use your real name.
But I don't even understand why they're allowed to look up the provider, or why I can't define myself as a mobile operator.
1. At https://www.facebook.com/USERNAME/about_contact_and_basic_in... - there's a contact info section where one can fill in a phone number (among other details) and set the visibility to Public/Friends/Friends except <group>/Only me/Custom/custom lists.
2. And https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=privacy - there's a "How people can find and contact you" section that covers "Who can look you up using the phone number you provided?" with options of Everyone/Friends of Friends/Friends/Only me. I imagine it'd be very easy to select the wrong thing during setup due to the overwhelming number of things to read and click.
I suspect those who have set the latter, or both options to "Everyone" will most likely be in the "free" data dump (except perhaps for most Australian Facebook users, for now).
I feel the second setting is riskier, especially if you don't want employers or colleagues to be able to simply look you up on Facebook by phone number. For example, I could hypothetically display my phone number to "Everyone" on an incognito profile and no one should be able to just wander by and spot my profile and immediately figure out who I am (assuming this profile doesn't somehow get suggested to "Friends you might know" - big assumption, yes; but this would depend on how I complete my profile). Regardless, either one or both set to "Everyone" is a recipe for disaster.
I believe more people would have allowed number searching compared to those who just have their phones displayed to everyone on their contact info sections. In effect, it's a bit of a reverse phone book, plus extra.
I am doing the same boat...and was working fine until i lost & replaced my old phone. All conversations were lost, and this makes it challenging to use whatsapp for any non-group conversations (since I can't start any).
There are also some apps and webpages that helps with this process (Disclaimer: I'm the author of one of them for Android [0])
[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trianguloy...
No.
Quote: "WhatsApp, which was acquired by Facebook in 2014, does share some limited data with Facebook, including phone numbers. However, the firm has reassured users that messages will always be protected by end-t0-end encryption, which means neither WhatsApp or Facebook can see these private conversations"
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlypage/2021/01/15/whatsapp-d...
They want to know who talks to who. Limited data? What a bunch of horseshit.
Likewise, sharing a limited amount of information with Facebook simply means they don't hoover up every single bit. Perhaps Facebook is not interested in those automated texts you get confirming haircut appointments...
I’m not sure their algorithm is this refined, but it’s not impossible.
These advertisements with half the information about the technology should be illegal.
And since it's a Facebook controlled company a leak like this happening again isn't that improbable.
Quote:
"Cathcart: It’s true that we do have some information about how people use WhatsApp and that we do know, for example, the device ID. We collect this only to secure our services and protect from attacks. When you use WhatsApp and allow access to your phone book, we only see the phone numbers, not the name.
DER SPIEGEL: Do you share these numbers with your parent company Facebook?
Cathcart: No, we don’t. The updated privacy policies will actually not change anything globally in our ability to share data with Facebook."
I don’t see how that “globally” can be true. If one compares the WhatsApp terms of service in the EEA (https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/updates/terms-of-service-eea/...) with those elsewhere (https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/updates/terms-of-service/?lan...), you’ll see the latter adds:
Affiliated Companies. We are part of the Facebook Companies. As part of the Facebook Companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, the Facebook Companies as described in WhatsApp's Privacy Policy, including to provide integrations which enable you to connect your WhatsApp experience with other Facebook Company Products; to ensure security, safety, and integrity across the Facebook Company Products; and to improve your ads and products experience across the Facebook Company Products. Learn more about the Facebook Companies and their terms and policies here.
AFAIK, that addition was what caused the uproar earlier this year.
(Also note the dark pattern in both terms of service that seed confusion as to which are the ones that apply to the EU. In the first sentence, “If you live in the European Region, WhatsApp Ireland Limited provides the Services to you under this Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.”, ‘this’ doesn’t refer to the text you’re reading, but to the texts behind the hyperlinks)