There is some data that Mark Zuckerberg’s social network processes directly when we import contacts from Facebook. And on the premium version there is little transparency: user information is still profiled.
We decided to tell what information technology companies collect about users and how it is used. L’Privacy Policy It’s critical to a user’s informed experience, but often appears as a link at the bottom of the homepage or barely visible when signing up for a service. Once opened, long pages of content reveal all the “secrets” about tracking user data.
Let’s start with Instagramthe social network of the Meta group dedicated to sharing videos and photos. According to a study signed by Meltwater and We are Social, Instagram has currently reached 1.65 billion users all over the world. Enough to justify the investment made by Mark Zuckerberg pto buy it in 2012: right a billion dollars.
What Instagram records about online activities
There is only one privacy policy that binds Instagram And Facebook, Meta’s two best-known platforms. And it is not surprising that in both they start from the contents that are published: posts, comments, audio, but also photos in the gallery when you open it to post a new image. Also registered are: metadata, i.e. the information internal to a content. For example, where a photograph was taken or when it was taken. All information that is the basis of how Instagram works.
This data says that every day there are 100,000 children who receive harassment on Instagram
Existing on social media, however, doesn’t just mean posting. Much of our time is spent scrolling and looking at what others have posted, from pictures of holidays in Caribbean paradises to selfies taken in nightclubs. How and how much we interact with other posts (but also with the advertisements that appear between one photo and another) is just one of the fundamental pieces of information collected by Meta. In short, how long we stay looking at the photos, if we put a like and if we open an advertisement for a holiday in the same Caribbean paradise where a friend of ours stayed are fundamental information for the platform.
Also receiving attention are the data collected by the device: geolocation, IP address (i.e. the identification code of each device that connects to the internet), which brand and model of smartphone we are using, but also when and how long we use the app. These are just some of the elements that are saved by the platform and that form a sort of “Fingerprint” of our online life.
Facebook also saves the data of those who are not registered on the social network
Not only users, but also “non-users”, as they are called. Part of the information is dedicated to data taken from contacts saved in our address book, even if they are not registered to the Meta platforms. The “Contacts upload” feature of Instagram and Facebook is used to search social media for the people we have in our contact list and invite them to join the social networks we are signed up to.
It is precisely when we invite someone to join Instagram or Facebook that the information we have about this person, like your name, surname, email address and telephone number, they are saved by Meta. As stated in the information, the data is used “to verify whether some of these numbers or addresses belong to our users”, but also to “verify suspicious activities in Meta’s products and guarantee the security of our platform”.
It is true that “non-users” can object to the processing of their information on the basis of GDPR (General data protection regulation), but to do so they must be aware that their data has been processed by a company whose services they do not use. In short, if we don’t notify our friends that we have synchronized the address book, it is almost impossible to understand.
“We cannot say for sure that this is a violation of the GDPR as far as regulatory compliance is concerned,” he explains Nicola Bernardi, president of Federprivacy. “But on the other hand, it is the same user who is unknowingly violating the privacy of those he has saved in his contacts, thus invading the private sphere and confidentiality of his person.”
What changes with the paid version of the app
Facebook premium was an urban legend for a long time, but then it became a much-discussed reality. Those who use the social network for free will continue to be shown advertising tailored to their interests. The situation is different for those who decide to subscribe to the paid version of Instagram and Facebook: in this case, the user “will not see adverts and we will not use his data for adverts”, we read. This time, however, the detail on how this user data will be processed can be found in the Terms of Use and not in the Privacy Policy.
“If there is something about the processing of personal data, putting it only in the Terms of Use is misleading, because the Policy is supposed to deal with everything related to data“, explains Bernardi. “Moreover, those who offer a service cannot do what they want with the data collected, because the platform must respect a minimization principle of the data, i.e. process them as strictly necessary, while for profiling or any other use the platform must ask the user for specific consent”.
Not only that: in the paragraph of the Terms of Use dedicated to subscriptions, it is not explicitly written that user data will continue to be processed by Meta even if personalized adverts are not shown. “In Article 12, the GDPR prescribes that the Information must be concise and expressed in intelligible languageonly in this way can it be considered transparent”, reiterates Bernardi. “So the average user must understand what is done with the data, he cannot be expected to have the knowledge of a lawyer”. And if a user does not know that, despite paying , your data will still be processed, then the Policy becomes a little less informative.
