TORONTO – Instagram has fixed a privacy loophole that allowed photos posted to the social network from “private” accounts to be publicly viewed on its website.
The privacy gap allowed anyone to see photos posted from accounts that were previously listed as “Public” – meaning any user can follow and like the pictures – even after the account holder had changed it to “Private” – meaning users have to send a request to the account holder to see the photos – through Intsagram.com
For example, let’s say your account was initially listed as public when you posted a picture you wouldn’t want your boss to see, so you changed your privacy settings to private. If someone were to get a hold of the URL for that photo, anyone would be able to access it via Instagram’s website.
The Facebook-owned company fixed the loophole over the weekend in response to inquiries from news website Quartz, who noticed the flaw.
“Instagram acknowledged the situation in a statement responding to Quartz late last week. It then updated its software to fix the privacy hole,” read the report by Quartz.
“As of this weekend, some images posted on private accounts that were once publicly accessible are no longer viewable.”
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According to the Quartz report, an Instagram spokesperson initially suggested that the ability to share private photos was intentional.
“If you choose to share a specific piece of content from your account publicly, that link remains public but the account itself is still private,” read a statement issued to Quartz on Jan. 8. However, the report said on Jan. 9 a spokesperson issued another statement stating the app had been updated so that if users change their accounts from public to private, web links are only viewable to their followers.
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Instagram users should take note that there are other ways the public can see your so-called “private” photos.
If a user with a private profile shares a photo or video to another social network – like Twitter or Facebook – using the “Share” options on the Instagram post page, the image will be publicly visible on that social network to anyone who has the URL.
For example, when an Instagram user chose to share the photo to Twitter, the tweet includes the permalink to that image.
“Keep in mind that sharing a photo or video to a social network doesn’t mean that the image will be visible in Instagram. Your account will still appear private to those who aren’t approved followers,” reads an Instagram support article on the topic.
In theory, anyone who comes across that tweet can copy and paste the permalink and share that supposedly “private” image.
Though this information is listed in Instagram’s help centre, not every user with a private profile may be aware of the stipulations.
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