Facebook is uploading icontacts from your smartphone

It appears that Facebook has found itself in the midst of yet another privacy issue. Once again, as is often the case among these types of SNAFUs, it's a misunderstanding due to lack of communication.

The bruhaha began when the following message began popping into people's Facebook feeds on Wednesday (including ours):


"Friends! ALL THE PHONE NUMBERS IN YOUR PHONE are now PUBLISHED on Facebook!"

• 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. 
• Then go to the right hand side and click on 'visit page' to remove this display option. Please repost this on your Status, so your friends can remove their numbers and thus prevent abuse if they do not want them published.

It's true, we noticed that we had the phone numbers of a number of our contacts in Facebook, and we didn't put them there. In fact, we didn't even know them.In addition, if your friends had phone information in their profile, and shared it, you'd now see it as well. In other words, what Facebook did was combine, or consolidate, the phone numbers from your smartphone and the phone numbers from your Facebook Friends into one list.

You just weren't expecting it, and Facebook didn't highlight the feature enough when it added.

In fact, if you visit your account and your contacts page in Facebook, off on the right you'll see:

"Facebook Phonebook displays contacts you have imported from your phone, as well as your Facebook friends.

"If you would like to remove your mobile contacts from Facebook, you need to disable the feature on your mobile phone and visit this page."

Just to be clear, you are the only one who can see the information uploaded from your phone. It's not like the phone numbers of people from your phone will show up in other people's Facebook contacts, unless they have them in their phone, as well, or their profile information shares it. There is, of course, an exception: Facebook can see it, as well.

Stay tuned with us at Facebook & Twitter and Subscribe Email to get updates on latest Tech Updates.