This week it was revealed that online auction and shopping website eBay suffered a security breach back in February or March of this year. The breach consisted of the theft of names, email addresses and other personal data, which affected up to 145 million eBay customers.

The website sent out emails advising its members to change their password details, in which some customers reported problems when attempting to do so, however eBay told the BBC that it was not aware of any technical problems with the password reset function on the site. "The site is busy, but our secure password reset tool is working," a spokesman said.

The company has been heavily criticised for its slow reaction in informing customers about the theft of personal data. The UK's information commissioner stated on BBC Radio 5 that eBay’s security breach was extremely serious, but expressed that outdated and complex data protection laws has meant that the ICO could not begin an immediate investigation.

The site warned that its official password reset email contained no links and that customers should be wary of messages that do contain links back to the website. eBay said that "any email with links is a phishing attempt", meaning that members should go directly to the site in order to change their password, instead of following links via emails, which could have been compromised.

Similarly, it was revealed yesterday that high street shoe retailer Office is the latest victim of a security breach, and has urged its customers to change their passwords for the website. Customers of the store should be aware that only accounts created prior to August 2013 have been affected. The information that could potentially have been compromised includes names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and passwords to the Office accounts.

In addition to the eBay and Office security breaches, the social media site Facebook has been criticised for its unveiling of a new feature for its smartphone application that'll enable it to "listen" to user's music and TV shows. This has raised concerns that it could allow the app to be used for unauthorised surveillance. The feature will enable consumers to use the microphones inside their smartphones to connect to the web, and therefore determine what music they're listening to, or- which TV show or film they're watching, before posting a status about it. This arguably Orwellian revelation raises the question: how much is too much when it comes to sharing information online?

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