Marketing firm Hyp3r sucked up public Instagram data
According to a media report, the marketing company Hyp3r has collected publicly accessible data from Instagram users on a large scale and stored it permanently. This would have included posts from the so-called "Stories" function, which are only visible for one day.
The website Business Insider reported, citing a spokesperson, that the platform, which belongs to Facebook, had kicked Hyp3r off the platform after the research became known and asked it to stop collecting data.
Instagram users can decide whether their posts on the photo platform are visible to everyone or only to certain users. The publicly accessible images, videos and information can then be accessed not only via the app, but also via the web version of Instagram. Hyp3r developed methods to automatically collect and store the files.
According to the report by Business Insider Instagram posts that contained the location of users. The location data was also read and stored. One of Hyp3r's services for customers such as hotels was to present collected Instagram posts from their locations. At the same time, they were also able to target users who were staying at the competition with advertisements. Hyp3r built up a database with thousands of locations of hotels, fitness clubs and stores.
From Instagram's point of view, the automated data collection violates the terms of use, Hyp3r explained Business Insider However, the company did not see any breach of the rules. The case is also an example of how detailed user profiles can be created on the basis of publicly available information and used by the advertising industry. According to the report, Hyp3r also uses automatic image recognition on the collected photos to evaluate what can be seen in the images.
Instagram had already cut access to location data via the official interface for developers last year. But Hyp3r has found a way to get the information anyway, wrote Business Insider. It was not clear why Hyp3r's automated data collection had not been detected by the Instagram systems. (sda)
