The private details of 100 million Facebook users have been published online.

The collection of names was posted by Ron Bowes, an online security consultant, on the Internet site Pirate Bay.

The information, now publicly available, means those on the list will no longer be able to change their privacy settings on Facebook.

Bowes used a specific code to scan 500 million Facebook profiles for information that was not hidden by privacy settings.

Facebook has responded by saying no private data had been compromised in the Bowes scan.