US lawyers have said Ashley Madison could be sued by millions of outed members.
According to the Malfideleco map, which shows a worldwide distribution of Ashley Madison users, more than 4,000 people between Pongakawa and Whangamata have registered to the controversial website. However, the accuracy of the data could be skewed as some people could have re-routed their digital address.
The map shows there are 3,426 users in Tauranga, 264 in Te Puke and 83 in Waihi. Other places such as Katikati and Omokoroa were included in the map.
The map shows the location of users based on their IP address but the accuracy of the data could be skewed as some people could have re-routed their digital address.
Tauranga pastor Tamati Cameron of C3 Church was shocked by the number of Bay people who signed up to the "adultery" website.
"I think that shows broken families, which means damaged kids, which means kids growing up in broken homes," Mr Cameron said.
"You got to think a majority of those families will probably end."
Mr Cameron said it was tragic news for children.
"That's the kind of thing that filters over the years, especially with young kids."
Nationally, tens of thousands of Ashley Madison account holders have been implicated in the scandal.
A Tauranga lawyer expected calls from upset clients.
"I'm expecting personally to have some fairly difficult calls from clients and having to manage their upset," she said.
She said she would advise clients to be absolutely certain their partners had been unfaithful before filing for divorce.
In the main centres, 22,861 users are registered in Auckland, 11,126 in Wellington, 11,048 in Christchurch and 4,634 in Dunedin.
The map highlights several Auckland suburbs, including Mt Eden with 40 users, and 6252 users.
Among the Kiwi clients ware 32 email accounts linked to government agencies.
There were 82 email addresses linked to schools and another seven addresses from the New Zealand Defence Force. Other email addresses purport to be linked to Auckland Council, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Youth Development, Corrections, Department of Conservation, police, and six district health boards.
However, Ashley Madison's sign-up process does not require email account verification.
More details are emerging about who uses adultery website AshleyMadison.com
A 9.7 gigabyte file was leaked online on Wednesday, claiming to contain account details of 32 million customers around the world, including an thousands of New Zealanders.
And now a new site has come online showing localised breakdowns of who used the site with the tagline: "Life is short. Have an affair."In Auckland city there are 22,861 users, of which 84 per cent are male, according to the breakdown.
Wellington has 11,126 users, of which nearly 85 per cent are men.
There are 11,048 people on the site in Christchurch, 87 per cent male.
And in Dunedin 4624 people, 86 per cent of which are men.
A spokesman for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner said present laws did not give much recourse for people whose details were hacked.
"This will change when other sections of the Harmful Digital Communications Act come into effect, such as the appointment of an approved agency to manage complaints and a takedown process for content hosts, but these are not yet available," he said.
"There are existing options, but these options can only be used as a reaction to a privacy breach. People can make a complaint to this office if someone uses the information, and they can complain to either the Broadcasting Standards Authority or the Press Council if a broadcaster or publication (respectively) uses this information in a way that breaches their privacy. But by the time a complaint comes to us, the damage will have been done.
"Taking out a court injunction to prevent publication might be one avenue of action. But we're talking about a 'whack-a-mole' situation where people who are intent on disclosing this data can find other ways of making it available if one option is closed down."
The issue wasn't just a legal one, but societal and cultural too, the spokesman said.
"Our advice to people is if you wouldn't want it to happen to you, don't do it to other people. Not sharing the Ashley Madison data is one way all of us can stop a bad situation from getting any worse."
A criminal investigation into the hack was being led by Canadian law enforcement authorities because that's where Ashley Madison and its parent company Avid Life Media were based. The FBI in the United States was also investigating, the spokesman said.
Ashley Madison registered users in the Western Bay according to the map
* 20 users in Pongakawa
* 246 users in Te Puke
* 3426 users in Tauranga
* 15 users in Te Puna
* 60 users in Omokoroa
* 130 users in Katikati
* 20 users in Waihi Beach
* 83 users in Waihi
* 50 users in Whangamata
Lawyers set to benefit after affairs leak
Husbands and wives across the world are waking up to their partners' extramarital affairs after a catastrophic leak at adultery website Ashley Madison spewed electronic evidence of infidelity across the internet.
Online forums were buzzing yesterday with users claiming to have found evidence that their significant others were on the site.
In Britain and Israel, parliamentarians have been put on the defensive after their email addresses were identified in the trove.
And in Australia, one woman appeared to learn - live on air - that her husband's details were registered with the site.
Family law experts are divided on the likely offline impact of the leak, but Los Angeles-based divorce lawyer Steve Mindel predicted an uptick in business for him and his colleagues.
"We're all saying: 'It's going to be Christmas in September,"' Mindel said. "Pretty soon all of this stuff is going to surface and there's going to be a lot of filings for divorce directly as a result of this."
Ashley Madison marketed itself as the premier venue for cheating spouses before data stolen by hackers started spreading across the internet earlier this week.
The prospect of finding the name of a loved one or an acquaintance amid the site's more than 35 million registered members has drawn strong interest worldwide.
Websites devoted to checking emails against the leaked data appeared to be experiencing heavy traffic.
Forums such as Reddit - the user-powered news and discussion site - carried stories of anguished husbands and wives confronting their partners after finding their data among the massive dump of information.
Journalists were also combing through the data, looking for the names of celebrities, politicians or religious leaders.
- AP
