Paidsettlement · FTC Act (consent order)
Twitter's $150M FTC penalty over 2FA phone numbers
$150M
US Federal Trade Commission
US · 2022
Status: Paid
What happened
The FTC and DOJ penalised Twitter, now X, for using phone numbers and email addresses collected for account security, such as two-factor authentication, to target advertising.
How it affected users
Data people provided to protect their accounts was quietly repurposed for ad targeting.
Status timeline
May 25, 2022
Penalty announced.
Sources
- FTC press releaseregulator
Last verified 2026-07-02. Spotted an error? Report a correction.
Cite this entry
Deepak Gupta, "Twitter's $150M FTC penalty over 2FA phone numbers," Tech Fines Directory, guptadeepak.com, 2022-05-25. https://guptadeepak.com/tech-fines/violation/x-us-ftc-2022/