April 14th, 2021
Dado Ruvic / Reuters
Ireland s Data Protection Commission (DPC) is investigating the recent leak of a Facebook user dataset that dates back to 2019. At the start of April, it came out that someone on a hacking forum had made the dataset public, exposing the personal information of about 533 million Facebook users in 106 countries. Depending on the account, there are details about phone numbers, birth dates, email addresses, locations and more. The source of the leak is an oversight Facebook fixed in August 2019.
“The DPC, having considered the information provided by Facebook Ireland regarding this matter to date, is of the opinion that one or more provisions of the GDPR and/or the Data Protection Act 2018 may have been, and/or are being, infringed in relation to Facebook Users’ personal data,” the agency said in a statement spotted by
BBC News
Published
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The Irish Data Protection Commission is to launch an investigation into a data leak in which the details of hundreds of millions of Facebook users were published online.
It had previously been looking into claims from Facebook that the data was old, from a previously reported leak in 2019.
But it now says that there could have been a breach of data laws.
Facebook said it was co-operating fully .
In a statement, the firm said the inquiry relates to features that make it easier for people to find and connect with friends on our services .