The Japanese government yesterday ordered Facebook to improve protection of users' personal information following data breaches affecting tens of millions of people worldwide. Facebook said early this month that hackers accessed the personal data of 29 million users in a breach at the world's leading social network first disclosed late September.

The company had originally said up to 50 million accounts were affected in a cyberattack that exploited a trio of software flaws to steal "access tokens" that enable people to automatically log back onto the platform. Japan's Personal Information Protection Commission yesterday demanded the social media giant investigate why the personal data was hacked and draw up preventive measures.

Up to 100,000 Facebook users may have been affected in Japan in that scandal, the commission said. "It is the first time that the commission, which investigated the data leak with British authorities, has issued warnings to Facebook," an official told AFP.