Ireland’s privacy watchdog has asked Twitter to provide information about a data scraping incident in which profile details, including emails and phone numbers, of millions of Twitter users were leaked online.
The Irish Data Protection Commission, in charge of overseeing Twitter’s operations in the EU, has sent a letter to Twitter asking for an explanation. reports About the breach, a spokesperson for the regulator told Politico.
“We are now waiting for their response,” said Graham Doyle, who is also the deputy data protection commissioner.
Twitter confirmed back in august that hackers had exploited a vulnerability in their systems to obtain Twitter profiles associated with phone numbers and emails – and vice versa.
While Twitter did not confirm the number of accounts affected, Media reports citing hackers said that as recently as November 24, profile details including email addresses and phone numbers of 5.4 million users were shared for free on a hacker forum. had disclosed the details of the vulnerability, millions more users.
The Dublin-based regulator said it was seeking information on reports of both incidents.
Mass scraping of user data recalls a similar incident on Meta’s Facebook, for which it was €265 million fine Last week by the Data Protection Commission.
Dublin already has two open investigations into Twitter that date back to before Elon Musk took over as the company’s CEO. Irish Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon told Politico last month His office will “probe” about ongoing investigations by directors of the company, with one investigation in the final stages.
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.