Was your data in the Facebook breach?
Check whether your email address was in it
Check my exposureFree. No password — we email you a six-digit code. This breach and every other one your address appears in.
Facebook (facebook.com) suffered a data breach in 2019 that exposed around 509,458,528 accounts. If you had an account, some of your personal data may be circulating in leaked databases. The fastest way to know is to check your own email — free, in about 30 seconds, no password required.
What happened
In April 2021, a large data set of over 500 million Facebook users was made freely available for download. Encompassing approximately 20% of Facebook's subscribers, the data was allegedly obtained by exploiting a vulnerability Facebook advises they rectified in August 2019. The primary value of the data is the association of phone numbers to identities; whilst each record included phone, only 2.5 million contained an email address. Most records contained names and genders with many also including dates of birth, location, relationship status and employer.
Breach record from Have I Been Pwned, CC BY 4.0. Risk analysis by Nullivo.
What was exposed, and why it matters
Not all breaches carry the same risk — what matters is which fields leaked. Here is what the Facebook breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
Also listed in this breach: Dates of birth, Email addresses, Employers, Genders, Geographic locations, Names, Phone numbers, Relationship statuses.
What to do if you were affected
These steps are ordered for this specific breach — the most urgent action given what leaked comes first.
- Dates of birth
Never confirm your date of birth to an inbound caller — hang up and dial the organisation back on a published number. - Phone numbers
Move two-factor authentication off SMS to an authenticator app or passkey, and add a port-out PIN with your mobile provider. - Location data
Review location sharing on the accounts you still hold with this service. - Names and usernames
Search your usual username to see what else it exposes, and use distinct handles for sensitive accounts. - Email addresses
Treat any message referencing this service with suspicion, and never act on links in unexpected emails. - Confirm you were actually in it
Run a free scan before you spend time on the steps above.
How urgent is this now?
This breach is over 7 years old. Old credentials still cause harm — leaked passwords from a decade ago are still tried against new accounts every day.
Remember: a breach can’t be “un-leaked” — once a database is out, it exists in countless copies. The goal is to make the leaked data useless: change what can be changed, lock down what can’t, and remove what has been republished.
Frequently asked questions
What data was exposed in the Facebook breach?
The Facebook breach exposed dates of birth, phone numbers, location data, names and usernames, email addresses. Date of birth is a permanent identifier used to verify identity by phone. Combined with a name and address it is often enough to impersonate you.
How many people were affected by the Facebook breach?
Around 509,458,528 accounts were exposed, making it one of the largest breaches ever recorded.
What should I do if I had a Facebook account?
Never confirm your date of birth to an inbound caller — hang up and dial the organisation back on a published number. You can check whether your own email appears in this breach with a free Nullivo scan — no password required.
Breaches that exposed similar data
If the Facebook breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.