NO IRISH PEOPLE have contacted the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner about the hacking of Ashley Madison.
It emerged yesterday that the extramarital affair website was hacked, putting the details of its 37 million users at risk.
As of 2011, the site had over 40,000 registered Irish users.
A group calling itself The Impact Team said it was behind the hack and claimed to have stolen user databases and financial records.
A spokesperson for the Data Protection Commissioner said the office is “not in receipt of any queries on this matter”.
“In addition, the website is not Irish-based and accordingly it is outside the jurisdiction of this office.”
In a statement, Ashley Madison apologised for the “unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information“.
In light of the news, the company is offering a “full-delete option” free to any member who wants to remove their profile – this normally costs about €21.
The statement read:
Contrary to current media reports, and based on accusations posted online by a cyber criminal, the “paid-delete” option offered by AshleyMadison.com does in fact remove all information related to a member’s profile and communications activity. The process involves a hard-delete of a requesting user’s profile, including the removal of posted pictures and all messages sent to other system users’ email boxes. This option was developed due to specific member requests for just such a service, and designed based on their feedback.
It added that the hackers “will be held responsible”.
Keeping schtum
When TheJournal.ie contacted Ashley Madison for information about how many Irish users it has, the company said it doesn’t “have information on your specific questions at the moment”.
Interestingly, when this website wrote about the service in 2011, the company was very forthcoming with information.
Ashley Madison had grown by 170% in Ireland in the previous 12 months. The company’s tagline is: ‘Life is short. Have an affair.’
Here’s a breakdown of its users in certain counties, as of four years ago:
In 2014, Ashley Madison had €105.9 million in revenue off the back of solid growth in female users. Revenue was projected to top €138.2 million this year.
Additional reporting from Business Insider
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