Question about a Recovery Contact

The requirements for a Recovery Contact:

• Your contacts will need an iOS device with iOS 15 or iPadOS 15 or later, or Mac with macOS Monterey or later, and must meet the minimum requirements. Your recovery contacts won’t have any access to your account, only the ability to give you a code if you need one.

SMS messages are easily spoofed and does not use encrypted communication for any security protections. With iMessage, they are end to end encrypted, so your Apple Account would not be jeopardized

Here is how to: Set up an account recovery contact - Apple Support

Apple requires the recovery contact to have access to an iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

But nobody around here can answer a “why?” question. Only Apple. And Apple has not elaborated on this.

Though accepting the role does require using an Apple device.