Privacy is a big deal to me and I keep reading from people about how the new Facebook “Messenger” app for the iPhone accesses all your phone numbers and other personal data on the device. That sucks. Is there a way to use Messenger but disable or block its access to the rest of the data on my phone? Especially my contacts and their phone numbers!
We are definitely in an age where privacy is something that we need to fight to retain, as more and more programs are trying to sneak their way into the wealth of data we have on our phones, computers, tablets, etc. Wait until we have wearables that are tracking where we go, who we are in proximity to, and more. Privacy is going to be even more imperiled in that world.
Having said that, Facebook Messenger doesn’t really do much that the main Facebook app hasn’t done for years in terms of accessing data and your privacy. The main Facebook app can access your phone contacts already if you grant it permission, it’s done under the guise of “find your friends on Facebook” and, in the other direction, “add Facebook profile photos to your phone contacts” on the phone itself.
Further, you can opt out with Messenger, though as with so many things on the Internet, people don’t investigate and instead share half-baked paranoia about something — almost always on Facebook, ironically — and so I still read about people who are refusing to install Messenger on their smartphones because they don’t want Facebook accessing their phone directory. Okay. But you can disable it too.
Let’s have a look, shall we?
Here’s the main screen for my Facebook Messenger program:
See at the bottom the icon for “Settings”?
Tap on it.
The last entry on Settings is the one that’s important here: “Synced Contacts”.
By default, it’s turned ON, but you can change that! Tap on it and a prompt appears at the bottom of the screen:
Tap on “Stop Syncing” and it’ll confirm that’s what you want to do with a fairly dramatic second prompt:
Still not sure what it means? Don’t worry. In fact, check it out: when I click “Remove” it whirs along with a pretty neat looking progress indicator…
And here’s the surprising thing. When you’re done, nothing appears to have changed:
Everything still works just fine, everyone’e still in your Messenger list, and now your privacy is good to go.
So there you have it. No paranoia, no Internet rumors. Just the facts on how to quickly and easily disable contact syncing…
I have an android phone. I’ve never had the Facebook app on or messenger. My contact list includes patients and personal friends. Today I got a messenger message from an tenant on facebook. Looking at the messeger app on facebook there seems to be no privacy settings at all, and I never had it on my phone. Yet still my facebook address is being passed to my contacts list on the phone. Which I do not see how facebook can have without breaking into my phone.
My facebook is also set to “only friends of friends” and somehow the fact that this persons phone number is in my phone bypasses that. I am at my wits end here!
my messenger looks similar but in the last few weeks an update changed how it looks in general and I don’t see a settings option anywhere while in the app. any suggestions?
I have Samsung S6 I have people random adding on my messenger. How can I removed them. I saw dave what you did step by step. How about andriods
Users.
Hi Dave! By this way that you explaind,can I make sure that the contacts won’t find my account ?
Please reply my question fast!? I need to know
Hi Dave, I already have that turned off, as well as all other settings for Facebook accessing my contacts and whatnot. I don’t even have the Facebook app on my I phone, yet someone, Facebook listed a bunch of my phone contacts to me in my newsfeed asking me if I wanted to add these friends. Facebook or Nessenger definitely has all my contacts–I’m positive all the settings to do with contacts are off or un-synced. Any other ideas? Thank you
Yet somehow, not someone:)
Okay I went on my IPhone under Messenger and found the sync area and turned it off but it never said it would delete the contacts so I went in and deleted all the phone contacts. My messenger contacts are still there and my phone contacts are still in the contacts under my phone. So all should be good right?
i reinstalled the app as i’m having other contacts that were in my phone before because my dad used it before and not it’s not even turned on to syncing and included with my phone number though but i can still see the contacts that are not in my phone please need help??!!
Do not use any facebook apps and only log in from web. Then Facebook can go scratch their ass!
hi, i was an fb user recently i deleted my account…for few days i also installed fb messenger on my non calling tab and then i logged out of it and deleted it too…and the nmbr i gave in fb account was old invalid nmbr…it stayed there…i want to to know whether or not any facebook user can access my mobile number or any other info about me even if i kept privacy controls on it…please i am breaking my head coz few unknow nmbrs are feeding on my brain..plz i dont want to mess it.plz tell me clean way out.
If you must install FB Messenger in order to turn off sync hasn’t FB already downloaded your contacts info? You’re going into Messenger settings post installation. Seems like FB would already have completed the initial DL. The only option I can see is to delete your full contacts list, install Messenger, disable sync in Messenger settings, then sync your contacts on your device. PITA.
So annoying that FB must have their noses in every crevice of our lives. The “cost” of using their service. Meanwhile, they’re getting billions of pieces of data to map every aspect imaginable of the human psyche…FOR FREE!
Bingo! Have you found a method of preempting the data mining of contacts? Now that fb is requiring Messenger to text friends, it seriously offends my coming sense.
Btw, the concerns in your post, were precisely Zuckerberg’s selling points when initially trying to attracting Venture Capitalists!
Thanks, Dave, for the step-by-step, somewhat smarmy directions. I would have sent you two Chai teas, but your newsletter field isn’t taking my email. Blah blah blah im a paranoid freak. lol
I’m probably jumping off Facebook with my friends and family and onto Instagram and Twitter. Advice?
smarmy? 🙂 Curious, what’s your email address? If it’s just the regular @gmail.com it should work just fine… And jumping off Facebook to join Instagram and Twitter? Sounds like a plan. Not sure what I can suggest as I spend lots of time on all of ’em!
You’re joking about Instagram & Twitter, right?? Insta is even WORSE about data mining and is owned by Facebook! My suggestion: Users should research EVERY app’s [invasion of] privacy policies before using them!
I have the facebook mobile account on my cellphone. Today I logged on to find that facebook was “suggesting” I add my ex husband as a friend. This upset me. So I created a new id, and for one day there wasn’t any suggestions about him. Today I log on and again, it is suggesting that I add him.
How do I stop this?
It is also suggesting people I have in my cell contact list ( address book )
I don’t want people in my contact list to have access to my facebook page.
How do I stop this?
Please help!
That’s hard to disable, “Love”. One suggestion is to actively block your ex on Facebook so they don’t show up as a suggestion. The whole suggestion system is based on friends in common, location, etc, too, as far as I know, so even having zero contacts could end up having these people show up as suggested friends…
I have not synched my address book in Messenger, yet FB is definitely accessing my Contacts. I am receiving Friend suggestions about professional contacts I never interact with socially. How is this possible and how do prevent it? Thanks
can we use facebook messenger and keep our phone number from being revealed.can i un messenger someone without unfriending them
I have not synced my contacts on messenger but I suspect that FB is accessing my contacts. Do you know if there is anything in their agreement that allows them to do this? Or, if not, have you heard of other people with the same concern?
I have not synced my contacts. If somebody on my phone’s contacts who has my telephone number, syncs his contacts, would he be able to see me on his list of friends on Messenger? My telephone number does not appear on FB and the setting is that only my friends can find and contact me. This one, however, is a contact on my phone, but not on FB. Can he see me using Messenger? Simply put, I don’t want to be on his Messenger.
Thank you for an interesting article.
From what you’re describing, there should be no mapping within the Facebook domain of your phone number to your FB account, so no, the other person shouldn’t be able to have their version of Messenger map your ID. Then again, a lot of this is pretty mysterious and not well explained to us mere mortals, so perhaps it would work anyway. I hope not!
Hi Dave … first thanks for the informative article.
Can I further inquire about the following … here are the facts ..
1. I have in Facebook my mobile number (mobile 1) registered in my account/profile.
2. I have FB app installed in my Iphone and messenger installed too. In messenger, the phone number I entered during the time of installation is the same as what I have registered in my FB account (mobile 1).
3. In my Iphone, I have a different mobile numbe (mobile 2).
Now this is my question (if you don’t mind, as I search the net for answers and nothing is clear to me even in Facebook Help) :
I am not able to see any suggestion of contact in my messenger if I don’t turn on SYNC. And if I do turn on SYNC, the persons in my addressbook who also has messenger in their phones will appear in my messenger contacts list, right ? My question is – any person who has my mobile number (mobile 2) will they see me in their messenger if I have a different number registered in facebook (mobile 1) ?
Hoping to hear from you … thank you in advance !