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 TechCrunch.

The news: The personal data of 533 million Facebook users in more than 106 countries was found to be freely available online last weekend. The data trove, uncovered by security researcher Alon Gal, includes phone numbers, email addresses, home towns, full names, and birth dates. Initially, Facebook claimed that the data leak was previously reported on in 2019 and that it had patched the vulnerability that caused it that August. But in fact, it appears that Facebook did not properly disclose the breach at the time. It only finally acknowledged it on Tuesday April 6 in a blog post by product management director Mike Clark.

Data from a 2019 hack of Facebook Inc. was made public in recent days, revealing the phone numbers and personal information of more than a half-billion people. While the data came from a vulnerability of Facebook platforms that the company says it has since fixed, security experts say that scammers could use the information for nefarious purposes like spam email and robocalling. Regulators in Europe have asked Facebook for more details about the data leak. Facebook said Tuesday in a blog post that the data leak reflects the ongoing need to police actions of bad actors on its platform. Here is what you need to know.

Australians are being urged to secure their social media accounts after the details of more than 500 million global Facebook users were found online in a massive data breach. The details published freely online included names, phone numbers, email addresses, account IDs and bios. In a statement, Facebook said the leaked information was old, and came from a problem it had resolved in 2019, but experts told Guardian Australia the data could still cause problems for users caught up in the breach. So what might hackers do with your info? How can you check if your data was leaked?

BRUSSELS - Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg arrived to meet European Union lawmakers on Tuesday ready to apologize for a massive data leak, in his latest attempt to draw a line under a scandal that has rocked the world's biggest social media network. Zuckerberg agreed to meet leaders of the European Parliament to answer questions about how political consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly got hold of the personal data of 87 million Facebook users, including up to 2.7 million in the EU. According to pre-released remarks, Zuckerberg will say it has become clear "over the last couple of years that we haven't done enough to prevent the tools we've built from being used for harm as well." "Whether it's fake news, foreign interference in elections or developers misusing people's information, we didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibilities. That was a mistake, and I'm sorry." His comments echo an apology last month to U.S. lawmakers, but questions remain over how Facebook let the leak happen and whether it is doing enough to prevent a recurrence.

Facebook did not immediately reply when asked on Sunday for a response to the lawmakers' comments. However, in a new statement Sunday, the company said it was conducting a "comprehensive internal and external review" to determine if the user data in question still existed.