Instagram is said to be prototyping a new privacy setting that would allow it to share your location history with Facebook. Meaning, your exact GPS coordinates can be collected by Instagram, even when you’re not using the app, which would helo Facebook to push targetted ads and recommend you relevant content.
This geo-tagged data of yours would appear in Facebook’s profile’s activity log which also includes daily maps of the places you been. This would definitely upset the users who are concerned about their privacy. With Adam Mosseri as head of Instagram, who also happens to be a close associate of Mark Zuckerberg, questions about how Facebook would attempt to squeeze more value out of Instagram including referral traffic to the main app, inserting additional ads, or pulling in more data.
Regarding the location settings, a Facebook spokesperson said: “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. Instagram does not currently store Location History; we’ll keep people updated with any changes to our location settings in the future.” This confirms the prototyping of the feature but hasn’t launched it yet.
The screenshots of the feature come from famous tipster Jane Manchun Wong. This feature is located in the Privacy and Security settings, the Location History option “Allows Facebook Products, including Instagram and Messenger, to build and use a history of precise locations received through Location Services on your device.” It is also unclear if this feature would be opt-in/opt-out.
Recently we saw reports regarding Facebook testing map view for Nearby Friends that replaces the list view of friends’ locations with a map. Pulling in Location History from Instagram could help keep that map up to date. Since it is still in the early stages, we don’t have details regarding when would this feature launch.