Bad actors could have potentially used phone numbers leaked by WhatsApp to target people with scams, SIM swaps, identity theft, or other forms of fraud. Though, WhatsApp should never have made it possible to do this in the first place, especially considering the number of sensitive things most people's phone numbers are linked to. It's possible that WhatsApp added a robots.txt file to its website that tells Google to stop indexing its pages. Prior to the change, though, posting your WhatsApp QR code online could result in Google indexing it, with no easy way for users to remove the results from search. The company says it has since stopped doing so following an article on the issue by SlashGear.

The problem stemmed from Google indexing these pages. You can always block someone on WhatsApp, but your phone number is more personally-identifiable and linked to critical services. But the Facebook-owned company built itself on prioritizing privacy over money or growth, and leaking the phone numbers of its users isn't exactly keeping them private. Now a security researcher, Athul Jayaram, reports that sharing the links to these QR codes online could result in your phone number being revealed to anyone who cares to look.Īdmittedly, this isn't a huge issue, especially if you only use WhatsApp to talk to close friends and family who are likely already in your contacts list. WhatsApp launched a new feature earlier this year that lets you add contacts via QR code.

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