Phone numbers and email addresses belonging to 6 million Facebook users have been improperly shared due to a software bug.

The social networking site has apologised for the glitch and says financial details have not been compromised.

Affected users were notified by email and advised the impact was likely to be "minimal," as details would only have been shared between users who already had some connection to them.

It's unclear as yet if any Irish users details have been compromised.

The bug occurred when a Facebook user dowloaded their account through the social network's Download Your Information (DYI) tool.