Who owns a phone number? Facebook takes care of it!

Do you receive calls from numbers you don't have in your address book and have no idea who they are? Are you in one of those moments when you don't want to be bothered at all (did someone say… vacation?) And you want to make sure you don't answer numbers that might bother you more than anything else?

Well, there is a simple and rather straightforward method it offers good chance of success: use Facebook! It is enough to have an account on the social network and hope that the annoying (or maybe not) caller has an account on the social network and has associated their number with it: that's it!

Find the name using Facebook (app or web)

In this case, the story is even simpler, as you just need to type the telephone number not known on the search field of Facebook web, Facebook mobile or one of the Facebook apps: if this number is associated with a Facebook user who has forgotten to disable the "magic" option (you will find the explanation immediately below), the contact corresponding to the number shown will be shown immediately!

Method 2: use Facebook Hello

Remember Facebook Hello for Android, the dialer promoted by Zuckerberg and his friends, based on Messenger and able to combine the functions of the social platform with those of a real composer for the smartphone (complete with access to the phonebook, call history and on saying)?

Well, Hello itself will allow you - if installed and active on your smartphone - to find out information on an unknown number: should the call arrive from a number not present among the contacts and this number was associated with a Facebook user who forgot to disable the "magic" option (which we will talk about shortly), the smartphone it will automatically show the name and surname of the user (or at least those corresponding to his Facebook profile).

Nice (or maybe not), right?

DOWNLOAD | Hello (Google Play Store)

How to avoid getting caught

The methods described above are quite simple and allow anyone with a Facebook profile to discover the owner of a phone number not present in their contacts, as long as the owner himself has declared it on Facebook; this happens quite often since, for reasons of security or simple convenience, many find it useful to hand over their number to the social network (especially those who use a mobile app) to take advantage of this or that additional feature.

Which is not a bad thing as long as check the privacy options carefully: in fact, if the telephone number is not adequately protected, it is possible to be recognized with the tricks described above.

How can you avoid it? Simple: just log in to the privacy settings page (Facebook menu> Settings> Privacy or from this direct link) and move the drop-down menu to "Who can look for you using the phone number you provided?" on Friends (or at most on Amici degli Amici).

Who owns a phone number? Facebook takes care of it!