Instagram adds new features to defend users' privacy. From today it will be possible to better manage the access of third-party apps
From today it is easier to control the third-party apps that have access to the data of our Instagram profile. The social group Facebook, in fact, has just introduced some new features that serve precisely this.
The new features introduced, which will be enabled gradually from today to the next few months, allow us to control access to our data by accessing the settings of Instagram, where a new screen has been introduced to control in much more detail what data is read by services external to Instagram. Also from this screen you can disconnect our profile from each individual app or site, while when installing the app you can now grant minimal, or full, access to our data. This is a small step towards better control of our privacy even on Instagram.
Instagram: how to manage access to our data
Many third-party apps, but also websites, have among their features also those of importing photos from Instagram or publishing content on our Instagram profile. In both cases, we must grant these apps or sites permission to access our profile. This means that that app or site will have access at a minimum to our username and all photos. With the new features introduced today by Instagram this will be easier to limit and manage. By going to Settings > Security > Apps and Websites users can now see (and remove) all third-party services linked to their account.
Once removed from the list, that service will no longer be able to read new data from our account. The new permissions screen, which appears when an app asks for access to our Instagram profile, allows us to authorize or deny access to certain data. In particular, we can now choose whether to grant access only to basic profile information or also to all content already posted.
Will it be enough to protect privacy?
With these new settings Instagram actually takes a step forward to protect user privacy. Provided that users make the right choices when using third-party services linked to their profile. In fact, it can't be ruled out that apps in the future will require full access to our data in order to function and that, as a result, the user is faced with the crossroads: give it all up to use the service, or protect privacy by giving up a bunch of apps?