Dead Loved Ones May Accidentally Show Up In Facebook's New 'Hello' App

Facebook on Wednesday released a new caller ID app for Android called "Hello." It lets you see more information about strangers or businesses who are calling you, links your friends' phone numbers with their Facebook profiles and generally offers a few conveniences beyond the standard caller-ID functions on your phone. It also might tell you you've recently had phone calls with dead people.

When I downloaded the "Hello" app to my smartphone, I swiped over to my call history and was startled to find that my friend's younger brother Oliver was showing up instead of him -- even though he passed away two years ago.

It's unclear what's causing the uncomfortable glitch, but there are a couple of things that stick out as possibilities. The two have the same last name and are officially listed as brothers on Facebook. The younger brother has his phone number listed on Facebook, but my friend does not. When Oliver died, his family did not convert his page to a "memorial page," meaning he may as well be alive in the cold, algorithmic eyes of the social network.

Oddly, the "Hello" app listed two numbers in Oliver's information page: His and my friend's, though the latter somehow became the default. Oliver isn't even in my phone otherwise. While I could still search for my friend's name and call him, when I punched the number in from memory, Oliver came up, not him.

This conversation definitely did not happen.

Asked if he had somehow associated his mobile number with Oliver's page upon his death, my friend told me "not to my knowledge," but that he doesn't have access to his brother's page anyway -- after he passed away, my friend was given the option to take the profile down or leave it up, but wasn't granted further access to it.

A press representative for Facebook did not respond to a request for comment from The Huffington Post.

It's unclear how many people have downloaded "Hello" so far or if any of them have experienced similar issues with the app suggesting it can help them commune with planes beyond the mortal realm. But its parent app, Facebook Messenger, has been downloaded by at least 500 million people.

In any event, now might be a good time to get your affairs in order on Facebook and decide who gets control of your page when you eventually shuffle off this mortal coil.

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