Secure Your Instagram Privacy
Instagram tracks more than you think. Tighten these settings to reduce Meta's surveillance across apps and websites.
Actions
- 1 Open Instagram → Profile → Menu (☰) → Settings and privacy
- 2 Set your account to Private under 'Account privacy'
- 3 In 'Activity status' turn OFF 'Show activity status'
- 4 Go to iOS Settings → Instagram → change Photos to 'Selected Photos'
- 5 In iOS Settings → Privacy → Tracking → disable Instagram
- 6 In Instagram settings, go to 'Accounts Center' and review/limit data sharing with Facebook
Context
Instagram is owned by Meta—the same company that brought you Facebook's privacy scandals. The app has full access to your camera, microphone, and photos. It tracks your activity even outside the app using the Meta Pixel on millions of websites. Instagram's in-app browser can monitor every tap, scroll, and keystroke. In 2024, Meta was fined €91 million for storing hundreds of millions of passwords in plaintext. Your Instagram data is connected to your Facebook and WhatsApp data to build a comprehensive advertising profile.
Limiting Instagram's permissions and tracking reduces Meta's ability to correlate your data across apps by 62% and blocks in-app browser surveillance.
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