Another Facebook error: exposed the phone numbers of millions of users

The databases have retained the identity of Facebook users – a unique combination of numbers for each account – as well as the phone numbers badociated with the profiles, the gender of the users of certain accounts and the geographical location.

The server in question was not protected by pbadword, which meant that Anyone can access the databases and it was still online this Wednesday night, when TechCrunch contacted the host.

Facebook has partially confirmed TechCrunch's information, but downplayed the incident by ensuring that the number of accounts confirmed so far is about half of the $ 419 million mentioned.

The group added that many of these recordings were copies and the data was old. "This dataset has been removed and we have not seen any sign that Facebook accounts have been compromised.", a spokesman for the social network told AFP.

Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed in March 2018, on the use of millions of Facebook users for political purposes without their knowledge (and that they would have influenced the 2016 presidential elections to the states United Kingdom and the British referendum on Brexit). the same year), the group deleted a feature to search the platform with phone numbers.

Putting their phone numbers online exposes users to receiving unsolicited calls or being hacked by "hijacking" the SIM card, as was the case recently for Twitter's boss, Jack Dorsey.

At the end of August, Facebook announced the testing of a new feature that allows users to control the data collected by the US company outside the social network.

This announcement comes less than a week after new revelations about Facebook's practices, which acknowledged having transcribed audio earphones from the conversations of some users after long denied.

In late July, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the US consumer monitoring agency, imposed a fine of $ 5 billion on Facebook for failing to effectively protect the personal data of its users.