Does Instagram Remove Data From Its Servers?
Instagram is an enormously big money-maker company. Instagram’s parent company Facebook denied releasing the exact figures about Instagram’s revenue. Some reports claim that it generated $20 billion in advertising revenue in the year 2019. However, this amount was similar to Facebook’s entire year revenue. You might be surprised to know that Instagram uses your personal information to serve you ads that it believes you might click on. But does this data get stored on Instagram’s servers? The clear answer to your question is yes. In this article, we are discussing how long Instagram will remove data from its servers.
How it Started
At one point, a security researcher was awarded a bug bounty of $6,000 after he found that Instagram stored direct messages, photos, and posts on its servers long after he deleted them.
Independent security researcher and expert Saugat Pokharel found that some of his deleted data is still available on the servers of Instagram after downloading his data from the application’s server. He claimed that most of his data, which he previously deleted, including photos, direct messages, and posts were available on the downloaded file. He further added that it is bad for a company like Instagram to store such private data of users on their servers, which was deleted by the user.
However, it is not uncommon for companies and brands to store freshly deleted data for a short time until it can be properly removed from its servers, networks, systems, and caches. In response to Pokharel’s allegation, Instagram replied that it takes about 80-90 days for deleted data to be fully removed from the servers and networks.
Who owns the information?
You should understand that the data you give to these companies becomes the property of the company or the person you gave it to. They don’t have to return it because you have changed your mind about letting others use your personal information. Beware that your data also gets pulled by information aggregation websites. These websites believe they have every right to collect and sell user’s information.
What Instagram Stores in Your Account
- Your profile information
- Direct messages you have sent to other users
- All of your mobile phone contacts
- Stories you have shared
- Your connections and who you follow
- Search history
- Videos and photos you have posted
- Posts you have liked
What can you do about it?
To protect your privacy, stop posting personal data on the Internet. Use false or wrong information on open social media accounts. Anything data aggregation websites pull will be worthless. Also, the best way to maintain privacy is to prevent yourself from using social media in the first place. If you think that deleting social media accounts will remove all your data from the servers will help you, then you are wrong.
In a Nutshell
Instagram will indeed remove data from its servers, knowing the fact that it can take up to 90 days to get all the information deleted from the servers. However, Instagram has claimed that all the data will be deleted quickly after the user’s escalation.
