A new feature on Instagram that let’s users share their real-time physical location with others on the app has privacy experts concerned over the amount of data exposed and potential safety risks to users.
Called Instagram Map, the new feature was introduced on Thursday as part of an app update. On its blog, the company says the location-sharing tool makes it “easier for you and your friends to stay in touch through the content you’re enjoying on Instagram.”
“You can opt into sharing your last active location with friends you pick, and you can turn it off anytime,” Instagram said in a blog post announcing the new feature. “You can also open the map to see content your friends and favorite creators are posting from cool spots. No matter how you use the map, you and your friends have a new, lightweight way to connect with each other.”
“Off by default”
In a statement shared with CBS MoneyWatch Friday, Instagram’s parent company, Meta, emphasized that Instagram Maps is not automatically active upon updating the app and that users must opt-in to the location-sharing feature in order to make their whereabouts visible to others.
Instagram 
“Instagram Map is off by default, and your live location is never shared unless you choose to turn it on. If you do, only people you follow back — or a private, custom list you select — can see your location,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch.
Users can also choose not to share their locations when they are in particular places, or with particular people.
Still, privacy experts say that social media users aren’t always aware of how much information they’re sharing with an app or its users, even if they have the ability to limit who sees what.
“The more these location features are rolled out on social media it carries out the assumption that as long as you give users the ability to toggle them on and off that they’ll know exactly how to do that,” Douglas Zytko, an app safety expert and associate professor at the College of Innovation & Technology at the University of Michigan-Flint, told CBS MoneyWatch. “But the average user isn’t always aware of their privacy settings and if they match their preferences.”
When the Instagram Map feature is turned on, any content a user posts with a location tagged, including a reel, post or story, will show up on the app’s map for 24 hours, according to the Instagram blog. While the feature remains on, the user’s location is updated whenever they…
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