Instagram is starting to integrate more closely with Facebook when it comes to your personal location data.
The app is reportedly testing a new feature that would allow Instagram to share all of your GPS coordinates with Facebook without ever opening up the Facebook app. This would allow Facebook to gather more information on you so it can serve up more targeted ads and content, but that might piss off some Instagram fans.
Facebook’s new ploy to get your Instagram data comes just weeks after Instagram’s co-founders, CEO Kevin Systrom and CTO Mike Krieger left the company. Systrom and Krieger reportedly kept butting heads with Mark Zuckerberg and were frustrated that Instagram wasn’t able to operate as independently as it once had.
Facebook mines Instagram for data
The Instagram geo-tagged data would appear to users in their Facebook Profile’s Activity Log, where there’s a daily map of the places you’ve been. Mobile researcher Jane Manchun Wong was the first to tip the public off about the data-sharing feature in testing.
Instagram, as a "Facebook Product", is testing Facebook Location History in their app.
It allows tracking the history of precise locations from your device, now through instagram app too
previously: https://t.co/JCQGnawJbV pic.twitter.com/S02lyIfTlu
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) October 4, 2018
For now, Facebook is only testing the idea of sharing the data. It hasn’t been rolled out to all Instagram users yet, but it could come soon. In a statement made to Techcrunch, Facebook hasn’t said when or if it will push out the data-sharing setting to everyone.
“To confirm, we haven’t introduced updates to our location settings. As you know, we often work on ideas that may evolve over time or ultimately not be tested or released,” said a Facebook spokesperson. “Instagram does not currently store Location History; we’ll keep people updated with any changes to our location settings in the future.”
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
