In recent times, Facebook has been at the hub of several controversies. From the look of things, it appears that the internet giant will have more issues to contend with pretty soon. Recently, there were reports that the information of 533 million Facebook users leaked. According to the report, the phone numbers and personal data of millions of Facebook users were released online for free. Since this report hit the web about four days ago, there has been no alert for these users. Of course, this is another potential court case brewing.
As of today, a Facebook spokesperson that the company had not notified more than 530 million users of the data breach. In fact, the company does not have any plans to notify these users. The information of these users before 2019 was leaked due to a feature being abused and was recently published in a database.
The Facebook spokesperson claims that the company is not convinced that it is completely clear which users need to be notified. In addition, the company believes that there is nothing users can do to fix this problem. This is why it does not see any need to notify these users. Facebook claims that it had blocked the loopholes after discovering the problem at the time.
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According to the internet giant, the user information does not contain financial information, health information, or passwords. However, these collected data may provide valuable information for intrusion or other abuses.
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Is Facebook correct not to inform users?
Firstly, we have to look at the information of these users that are in the public domain. According to reports, the leak contains the following information of millions of Facebook users
- Full name
- Phone numbers
- IDs
- Locations
- Dates of birth
- Sometimes email addresses
If these information of a particular user is in the public domain, the user deserves to know. Facebook’s claim is at best petty. With this information, fraudsters could claim to be calling from a company or even a bank. This could lead to more losses as a result of Facebook’s laxity. However, if these users are aware of the leak, they will be more careful how they respond to calls and messages. Some users will even change their phone numbers and emails as a result.
According to reports, the database contains data from 106 countries. This includes
- 32 million from the United States
- 11 million from the UK
- 6 million from India