A scandal erupted this Friday around the famous social network Instagram. A user realized that the photos and messages he had deleted were actually kept in Instagram’s servers which ensures that this is only a bug.
You may not know it, but it is possible to ask Facebook or Instagram for a copy of all of your data collected by both platforms. That’s what cybersecurity expert Saugat Pokharel did. But surprise: he realized that Instagram kept photos and messages that he had deleted a year before.
This is problematic since Instagram ensures that once a user deletes content, it definitely is. This Pokharel discovery dates back to last October. At the time, Instagram assured him it was just a bug. A bug that the social network corrected earlier this month, 10 months later.
Excuses that ring false
Admittedly, the bug is fixed. But if Saugat Pokharel had not requested access to his data, this famous bug might never have been discovered. Instagram would then have continued to keep the messages and photos of its users. In all, Pokharel received $ 6,000 from Instagram to thank him for pointing out this issue.
Remember that when a user deletes content from their profile, a social network can keep this data for a period of 90 days. This is one of the great challenges for cybersecurity experts who notice that this deadline is too often exceeded by social networks. For example, it was recently discovered that Twitter has kept conversations going for years… There is still a lot of work to be done on social networks to ensure that user privacy is truly respected in practice.
–
