Did you know that Meta most likely has your phone number and email address? Even if you've never provided it to them, someone you are connected with may have synced their address book with Facebook, Messenger, or Instagram and inadvertently shared your contact information.
The good news is that you can delete and block your contact information from Meta services. I was a bit surprised at how simple it was:
- Visit facebook.com/contacts/removal
- Select the option you'd like to search: Mobile phone, Landline phone, or Email address. The system can only process one request at a time, so you'll need to restart if you'd like to remove all three contact methods (if you're doing one, odds are you should do all three).
Beyond that, it's pretty simple. In the example below, I found and removed my mobile number:
I was sent a code to my Facebook-registered email address to verify and that's that.
If you're at all concerned with your privacy and want to take active steps to ensure that your contact information is not uploaded to Meta Products, it honestly only took me about 10 minutes to remove a landline, mobile phone, and two email addresses.
