Filipino Facebook users urged to be wary of privacy settings, change passwords

MANILA, Philippines — The National Privacy Commission on Monday reminded Filipino Facebook users to be aware of their privacy settings amid the data breach involving British firm Cambridge Analytica.

The privacy body earlier said that around 1.18 million may have been affected by the data breach.

NPC chair Raymund Liboro, however, said that the affected Facebook users should not panic.

"Don’t panic... We can just channel our energies now to finding ways on how we can better improve the service of Facebook," Liboro said in an interview with CNN Philippines' "The Source."

Liboro added that Facebook users, as well as users of other social media platforms, should read privacy policies and terms of use before installing apps.

The NPC chair also advised Filipinos to exercise "personal data hygiene" such as regularly changing passwords.

"This is really a practice worth making a habit to change your passwords regularly so that you lessen the chances of cybercriminals accessing your information without your authority," Liboro said.

Liboro warned that only three identifiers—name, email address and mobile number—are enough to form a "starter kit" for cybercriminals

"We think it’s nothing that’s very harmless and yet people can use these to scrape information from other social media platforms," he said.

Liboro said that Facebook officials have been cooperative with the NPC in dealing with the data breach.

The NPC recently opened an investigation into the social media giant to find out if there was unauthorized processing of personal data of Filipinos. The Philippines' privacy body demanded information from Facebook regarding the data breach.

"We’ve been communicating with them ever since this thing broke out and we even had an opportunity to sit down with them and what we've been very consistent in what we have been telling them in our objectives," Liboro said.

Facebook has yet to reply to the request of the NPC for documents of third-party tools and a detailed timeline of the incidents relating to the Cambridge Analytica data breach.

The NPC earlier said that the Philippines may be the second most affected country of the data breach in terms of data subjects.