• Instagram Map does not share a user’s location by default.
• Live location maps are strictly opt-in.
• Live location data is available for purchase.

Instagram’s new live location maps feature has caused a minor furore, with several claims circulating online that the feature is turned on by default, and users’ privacy thereby compromised.

Instagram Map allows users to share their location with friends, and “see content your friends and favorite creators ore posting from interesting or fun locations.” Social media-watchers will be aware of a similar feature, Snap Map, on the SnapChat platform.

The rumours of Meta ‘doxxing’ its users were, ironically, circulated on social media in the three days following the feature’s launch in the US. However, Instagram Map is very much opt-in, and several media commentators have taken to publishing reassurances that – despite Meta’s reputation and the generally low levels of trust most Americans have in Mark Zuckerberg – the app is not publishing users’ locations to anyone.

Meta defines privacy as not sharing users’ information with other people on its social networks, so personal details are kept ‘private’ from random strangers; that is, other users of Facebook or Instagram outside a user’s circle of contacts, celebrities, and interesting accounts. What the company’s privacy policies make clear, however, is that if a user has geolocation set to ‘on’ on their mobile device, their location is close to being a matter of public record, and is known to Meta and anyone the company does business with.

In the company’s Privacy Policy for Instagram, the terms state that, “Information that you’ve shared through your device settings (e.g. GPS location)” and “Location-related information” is used to personalise content and advertising, and “Make suggestions for you (such as people that you may know, groups or events that you may be interested in or topics that you may want to follow) on and off our Products.”

While many Instagram users are happy to trade what is, in terms of purchase, a free product, for some relevant advertising on the platform, the detail behind “off our Products” is a area worth considering. In the approximately 12,500 words of Privacy Policy, the company states that location information is used by “Our ads system [which] prioritises what ad to show you based on what audience advertisers want to reach,” as well as the company checking for improper use of the platform, occasionally running surveys, and the like. This seems reasonable, although checks on improper use have, in the current political climate, taken something of a back seat.

Location data is among a plethora of user activity information used by Meta for “Transferring, storing or processing your information globally: We share information that we collect globally, both internally […] and externally with our Partners, third parties and service providers.” It’s these activities that fall into the ‘off our Products’ category quoted in Instagram’s Privacy Policy: “Make suggestions for you […] on and off our Products.”

Transferring of data to other organisations, the company says, is necessary to “Operate and provide the services described in the terms.” In other words, transferal of user information, including where users happen to be at any moment, is necessary to run Instagram. Meta makes this clear: one of its activities is “Providing measurement, analytics and other business services to businesses, advertisers and other partners,” and to enable that provision, it supplies (among other data), “Location-related information, [and] information about the network that you connect your device to and your connection, including your IP address.”

Of course, it would be natural to think that if a user were not actively engaged on-screen with Instagram, or had even quit the app rather than merely background it, such information flow would cease. However, the majority of apps, including WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram ‘phone home’ from users’ phones at all times, regardless of whether the apps are running. Once installed, and users have signed up to a service, the provider – Meta in this case – knows where they are, which network they are attached to, their IP address, who their contacts are, what they do online, and so on.

This goldmine of information is available to marketers, political pressure groups, and organisations of any type by means of the Meta advertising network. Becoming a Meta Partner is as simple as heading to a web page and signing up. Information about individual users is not handed over to Partners, but is rich enough in context and detail that it’s relatively trivial to cross-reference Meta-supplied data with other sources to effectively pinpoint users – the better to ‘personalise their experiences.’

Joining the Meta Partner programme to access any Instagram user’s location data is contingent on having a few dollars to give to the company. But Instagram users can be absolutely sure that their location is not given away to other users by the new live location maps feature. At least, not for free.

(Source: “‘Private'” by duncan is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.)

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