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Norton’s new Mobile Insight technology has flagged the Android Facebook app for leaking device phone numbers without users’ permission.
Norton claims that the first time you launch the Facebook application, even before logging in, your phone number will be sent over the internet to Facebook servers.
With hundreds of millions of devices already having installed the Facebook app from Google Play, Norton believes a significant portion of these will likely be affected.
“We reached out to Facebook who investigated the issue and will provide a fix in their next Facebook for Android release. They stated they did not use or process the phone numbers and have deleted them from their servers,” reads Symantec’s blog post.
“Unfortunately, the Facebook application is not the only application leaking private data or even the worst. We will continue to post information about risky applications to this blog in the upcoming weeks.”
Those wishing to find out what apps are leaking their private information can do so by downloading Norton Mobile Security with Norton Mobile insight, which can be found at the Google Play store.
