Facebook has recently updated a feature in its arsenal that may have you concerned about your privacy again. They have apparently synced your contacts from your cell phone with the site. Just go to the top right of the screen, click on Account, then click on Edit Friends, go left on the screen and click on Contacts. All of your contacts are probably sitting right there.
I’m not sure how they have done this but I have a few ideas, first if you have iOS then you probably have allowed this thru the app since its a very easy way to sync your contact photos with the ones they are currently using on Facebook. But up until recently this was a pretty one way affair. On Android facebook is baked into the OS so my guess (I don’t own an Android phone) is that if you have ever logged into facebook either via the web site, or the app it has determined that this is your facebook account and synced your contacts on your behalf (How helpful of them).
From what I can tell this is harmless though very disturbing. If you have your phone number listed on facebook just ensure that you have it hidden which you can do by going to Account-> Privacy Settings -> Customize Settings then scroll down to where your phone number is and restrict the settings accordingly.
I have been hearing reports that people are seeing phone numbers show up in their contact list that they are not friends with and that they don’t already have a phone number for. Doing the above should ensure that no one else can see your personal contact information.
Another concern I have been hearing is that people are worried that their contact list may go public. Currently I see no way of making the list public but if you are still concerned this is an easy fix as well. First go on your mobile device and dig into either the Facebook settings or the phone settings and turn off your contact list sync with facebook, and then go to the contact list on facebook using the instructions at the beginning of this post and look to the right side of the page. Then click on the link provided to remove all of your contacts and you should be good to go.
An Explanation
As I said at the beginning I think all of this is harmless and facebook trying to make your life easier. They just partnered with skype and soon skype will be embedded thru the site. I think they want to make it easy to call anyone you already have contact information for by already having their number within and database that only you can access… But in classic facebook fashion they have bungled the feeling of security by making it opt out instead of opt in, because I am sure that if you got a little message (like the stupid one about the new chat features) that said hey if you want to sync your contacts with your cell phone click here most people would have done it. But here we stand. Message to facebook: You have to do better.
Please feel free to comment below to let me know if you find out anything else concerning these facebook contacts.
