Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002

Instagram’s lax privacy practices let trusted partner track millions of users’ physical locations, secretly save their stories, flout its rules

Business Insider

  • A buzzy San Francisco startup has been secretly saving what appears to be millions of Instagram users’ stories and tracking their locations.
  • The marketing firm Hyp3r has been scraping huge quantities of data off the Facebook-owned app and using it to build up detailed profiles of people’s movements and interests.
  • The situation highlights how Facebook is still struggling to protect users’ data and oversee developers accessing its platform, more than a year after the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed important privacy lapses.
  • Instagram has now issued Hyp3r a cease and desist, kicked it off its platform, and made changes to its platform to protect user data.
  • EDITOR’S NOTE: This story would normally be exclusive to BI Prime members. However, because of the public interest in this reporting, we’re making this story free to read for a limited time…”

Sorry, comments are closed for this post.