Download and View Social Media Data Regularly
Thought the data from that infamous Instagram post was lost after you deleted it like tears in a digital rain? Think again.
Cybersecurity researcher Saugat Pokharel discovered a bug in Instagram’s database that kept the user’s image data even if the person deleted the original photo from their feed.
An Instagram spokesperson told TechCrunch about a bug in its data download tool, which allows users to download and view copies of all personal data stored on the platform, preventing it from properly deleting image data. Facebook launched this tool for Facebook and Instagram users following the EU’s 2018 GDPR regulation. Pokharel discovered the error by accident when he found image data in his downloadable Instagram database.
Instagram says it has fixed the error and deleted the incorrectly deleted data. The company also says there is no evidence that the hackers used the bug. This is great and all, but this is another example of how social media platforms mishandle our data.
We don’t just need to worry about hackers
Social media apps love your data a lot. To their credit – and the GDPR – many of them have made it easier to see everything you’ve sent to their servers. But even if we know what is stored, we do not always know how or why it is stored.
For example, we all knew that Twitter stores the email addresses and phone numbers of users, and Facebook keeps backups of these passwords — everything it needs to verify someone’s identity when they log in. We were not aware that Twitter was selling this information or that Facebook was storing login credentials. with almost zero security. Then there was a leak from Cambridge Analytica.
And let’s not even start TikTok actively hiding our potentially privacy-infringing practices .
Check what your apps are tracking on social media
When you transfer your data to someone else , there is always a risk of misuse or mishandling. However, you can prevent privacy breaches by limiting the amount of data you allow to be collected on these platforms.
Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter allow you to download and view your profile data. These apps also let you restrict data tracking in your profile’s security and privacy settings ( for the most part ). It is not a silver bullet that magically anonymizes you on these networks, but it is something. And in the event of a slight glitch in Instagram, could that help warn you that all those images you are deleting? Yeah. Not actually deleted.
Try to review this data regularly. Assuming the databases include whatever is stored on those platforms, this is a great way to find whatever you want to delete. The less personal information you have stored there, the easier it will be to recover from a data breach.
[ Threatpost ]