Security News > 2021 > April > Irish Watchdog Opens Another Facebook Probe, Over Data Dump
Ireland's privacy regulator said Wednesday it has opened an investigation into Facebook after data on more than 500 million users was reportedly found dumped online, in a suspected violation of strict European Union privacy rules.
News reports earlier this month said the data was found on a website for hackers and contained information on 533 million users from more than 100 countries, including names, Facebook IDs, phone numbers, locations, birthdates and email addresses.
The watchdog said it launched the investigation after it "Engaged with Facebook Ireland," questioning it about compliance with privacy rules.
Still, it's another example of the vast amount of information collected by Facebook and other social media sites, and the limits to how secure that information is.
Even though Facebook has patched the vulnerability, the user data is already out in the open and could be exploited by fraudsters.
Irish regulators are already working on a dozen other investigations of Facebook and Instagram over suspected privacy breaches.