2FA only scams scammers, if you get my drift... that being said, there are stronger second factors than SMS OTPs, that's for sure. The EU has a telco directive which states that a person's mobile telephone number is treated as personal property and operators need to facilitate keeping the same number for an individual regardless of who he/she decides to have a contract with. So yeah, telephone numbers can be linked to persons quite easily, it all depends who's asking...

Thread title: No. Yes.

I think it's to further create an identity around you. This information can be used to associate you with a phone number, residence, IP address and all activity associated with it, etc. It's really not all that secure... especially after you lose your phone, lmao.

If we had stronger privacy protection in this country I'd probably be less suspicious

Maybe. The likelyhood the hacker will have your phone AND your email at the same time is not too likely. But the phone number can be detached, so if you changed phone numbers without changing all your 2FA you could lock yourself out. Just as big a problem.

Also a lot of people use weak passwords and share the same password between multiple accounts (Thus if some-other-site.com gets hacked and you have an account, they might get your password and try it on your account). So if your account at gmail has the same password as your yahoo one, then you aren't any better off.

A better thing would be to pose the same question for the so-called covid vaccines.

But the Earth isn't flat... Just ask Cpt James T Kirk.

Oof, sweetie, that's a big yikes! Don't question the efficaciousness of my heckin' vaxxerinos!

They are so perfectly safe and harmless that they could be served as a condiment to a fresh meal for the corona fanatics. Technocrats and corpocrats should start doing this.

I was talking about phone ID or IMEI if you prefer.

In Russia we also have something like this, every person may request to change the mobile operator but save the phone number, operators hate this but must complain and in reality they change your number anyway, for example you had number +7 (Russia) 916 (Region code / Operator code) 123-4567 and it might be changed into +7 965 123-4567, it looks like the same number but with the code changed it's still different and all your friends and contacts will need to update it to call you (back).

And it's still fairly easy to get yourself a free or cheap SIM-card without signing a contract with mobile operator. In TV ads they say that it might put you in jail because someone might have used it previously for illegal activities, in my opinion even the free lawyer could prevent this from happening but then again government can put anyone in jail around the world (even in developed countries with freedom of speech) unless you are super important.