Saugat Pokharel, a security researcher, has identified a bug on Instagram servers by requesting a copy of deleted photos and direct messages from the photo-sharing application. The data that he has deleted years ago has also been added to the list.
This problem has brought up a question mark on the privacy of user’s data on Instagram as this bug has shown that the data of users is not removed completely from the Facebook-owned Instagram.
However, it is still not clear whether all of the users got affected by this issue or just a few of them.
Yet, it's important to note that the data we delete online can take some uncertain time to dismiss from the servers of that specific site.
One of the spokesperson of Instagram has said that commonly its company takes approximately ninety days to delete the data permanently from the app. The security researcher has identified the same issue with some other social sites, Twitter was also one of them, which has also retained the messages among users for years after they have been deleted permanently by users.
Instagram has launched this tool in nearly 2018 that the researcher has used and get to know about this serious bug. Security researcher Pokharel has been able to expose this problem because he has had the option of copying the data from his Instagram account at any time.
According GDPR the citizens of the European Union should have an authority of accessing their online data. It also commends to provide the users an easy access so that they can ask for a copy of it freely and can avail it within a short period.
Pokharel has highlighted this problem when he has used the application’s feature to download his data. He has reported last year believably in October.
A recent report from TechCrunch claims that the company has fixed this problem. It has also rewarded Pokharel with nearly 6000 dollars for his attempt to report this bug. According to Instagram, they have fixed this bug, and they are thankful to the researcher for immediately providing insights related to the problem.
Read next: Facebook and Instagram Rolled Out ‘Voting Information Center’ For the Upcoming Election
This problem has brought up a question mark on the privacy of user’s data on Instagram as this bug has shown that the data of users is not removed completely from the Facebook-owned Instagram.
However, it is still not clear whether all of the users got affected by this issue or just a few of them.
Yet, it's important to note that the data we delete online can take some uncertain time to dismiss from the servers of that specific site.
One of the spokesperson of Instagram has said that commonly its company takes approximately ninety days to delete the data permanently from the app. The security researcher has identified the same issue with some other social sites, Twitter was also one of them, which has also retained the messages among users for years after they have been deleted permanently by users.
Instagram has launched this tool in nearly 2018 that the researcher has used and get to know about this serious bug. Security researcher Pokharel has been able to expose this problem because he has had the option of copying the data from his Instagram account at any time.
According GDPR the citizens of the European Union should have an authority of accessing their online data. It also commends to provide the users an easy access so that they can ask for a copy of it freely and can avail it within a short period.
Pokharel has highlighted this problem when he has used the application’s feature to download his data. He has reported last year believably in October.
A recent report from TechCrunch claims that the company has fixed this problem. It has also rewarded Pokharel with nearly 6000 dollars for his attempt to report this bug. According to Instagram, they have fixed this bug, and they are thankful to the researcher for immediately providing insights related to the problem.
Read next: Facebook and Instagram Rolled Out ‘Voting Information Center’ For the Upcoming Election
