Do Privacy Policies Really Give Us That Much Privacy?

Tonight I did some light reading through Instagram’s riveting privacy policy. They have their policy split into 9 parts which I will attempt to summarize for your convenience.

The first part is titled “What kinds of information do we collect?” First we must note that because Facebook and Instagram are now the same company, Instagram’s privacy policy is directly linked to Facebook’s privacy policy which opens up a whole new can of worms. None of the information Instagram collects is very surprising: your posts, location of your posts, communication with other users, purchases and transactions, and information others share about you. Instagram also claims that some information such as religion, political beliefs, race etc. “could be subject to special protections under the laws of your country.” I’m sure they kept the protected information section as vague as possible so they cannot be held to a specific clause in that part of the policy. To actually figure out what Instagram does with our information, we must move on to part two.

The second part, entitled “How do we use this information?” As evidenced from Watter’s article “Education Technology and Data Insecurity,” data collection can have unintended consequences. Therefore I was wary when reading this part of Instagram’s privacy policy. The gist of most of their data collection is our activity and location in order to personalize targeted ads for our profiles along with determining app updates. However, one part that is somewhat concerning to me is their policy on facial recognition which is available on Facebook and will probably be on Instagram soon. Besides helping you view what photos or videos you could be tagged in, Instagram doesn’t really go any deeper discussing the extent of their facial recognition software. On a happier note, they supposedly track relevant social issues in order to better study and provide aid to those issues.

The third part discusses how your information is shared which is fairly straightforward. You can share your information through a post, and someone can share information about you through their post. Information about your active status on Facebook and Instagram messenger is shared along with your information to any third party apps you may choose to use through Instagram or Facebook.

Part four simply discusses how Instagram and Facebook share infrastructure in order for our information to be easily shared between the two platforms.

Part five about deleting data also isn’t surprising. Instagram will delete data once it isn’t useful and will delete your data once you delete your account. However, Instagram cannot delete data about you that was posted by others.

In part six, Instagram reserves the right to intervene in you account if there is a legal request or a possibility that your account violates the terms and conditions or is harmful to others. Since Instagram is the one that determines what is and is not ok to have on an account, you do not have complete control over what you can post.

Part seven discusses how Instagram can share your information globally to any Facebook company and to their partners. This global sharing of information still adheres to the privacy policy and also adheres to standard contract clauses.

Part eight simply states that Instagram will notify you about any changes to the privacy policy.

Finally, part nine gives you Facebook’s contact information in case of any questions about the privacy policy.