The Office of the Privacy Commissioner says it is monitoring the news of Uber's data breach, and it may investigate individual complaints by people whose information was lost in the breach.

The data breach affected over 50 million people around the world, including some New Zealanders.

The Office says Uber has informed it that the breach included the names, phone numbers and email addresses of Uber users in New Zealand, and that the breach did not include credit card or bank account information.

"While I am pleased the local representative of Uber has notified my office of the issue, the one-year gap between the breach and notification shows why breach notification should be mandatory," Privacy Commissioner John Edwards says.

"When personal information is lost, individuals need to take action to protect themselves. People cannot take the action they need to take if they don’t know about the data breach in the first place."