The Data Protection Commissioner is to contact the popular social-networking website Bebo to outline his concerns about what will happen to the private data of some 500,000 Irish users if the site's parent company sells or closes down the service.

Billy Hawkes' intervention comes as a spokeswoman for Bebo declined to rule out the possibility that the company that owns the website would sell on the data to private firms as a revenue-generating exercise. She also declined to say if all of the data would be destroyed.

Typical data posted on Bebo ranges from personal photos and videos uploaded by users of the service, to information on age and relationship status of users.

In an unprecedented move, Bebo's owner, US-based AOL, last week revealed in a memo to staff that it was looking to either find a buyer for the website or to close it down.

This was because it was not in a position to invest the necessary funds to support the continued development of the website, it said.

However, when asked if she could rule out the possibility that the company would sell on its data to private firms, or if all data would be destroyed, a Bebo spokeswoman said she could not "speculate" on this.

Contacted for his views last week, Hawkes said there were strict regulations in place in relation to the sharing of such information.

"We expect Bebo to comply with Irish data-protection laws in the way it deals with the consequences for the data which it holds, whether it destroys this data if it goes out of business or passes it on to another social-networking site if it sells the business on," he said.

"We will be contacting it in relation to these issues."

While the age profile of Bebo users here is older than elsewhere, it has traditionally been most popular among young teens and college students in Ireland, who use it to share detailed personal information with one another.

Bebo had just over 500,000 unique visitors in Ireland as of February this year, indicating that it remains popular in this country despite the rise of competitors such as Facebook and Twitter.

AOL –which paid $850m to buy Bebo in March 2008 – is already nursing heavy losses from its investment in the website. Some insiders suggest that the data it holds could be of significant value to marketing companies in particular.