The National Privacy Commission (NPC) will meet with Facebook on June 16, to seek more information on the sudden surge of empty “impostor” accounts in the social media platform.
“The NPC is focused on probing the cause of the ‘privacy panic’ triggered by these impostor accounts and instituting remedial measures to protect Filipino Facebook users,” Commissioner Raymund Liboro said in a statement Saturday.
Liboro added that the NPC, while conducting its own investigation, was also coordinating with other government agencies.
In a previous statement, NPC said the extent of the identity breach had yet to be determined, but the fake accounts mostly copied names and identities of students.
Student-activists from Cebu were the first to notice the existence of multiple empty accounts under their names, but other Facebook users have also reported impostor accounts.
Most accounts were immediately deleted after being reported, but some users later found new impostor accounts under their names.
The issue caused panic on social media, with users expressing fear that the fake accounts might be used in an “online tanim bala” scheme that would expose them to liability under the proposed anti-terrorism law. John Ezekiel J. Hirro