Now, you can check, remove apps accessing Instagram data
What's the story
In a major move, Instagram is tightening its grip over third-party apps' access to user data.
The photo-sharing service has introduced two important features to help you see and manage all the services connected to your Instagram account and the information - from photos to profile data - being accessed by them.
Here's all about it.
Connected apps
First, you should know how third parties access Instagram data
These days, a number of photo editing, printing, and website building apps request to connect to Instagram for importing photos and profile data directly.
The feature proves handy at the moment, but there might be cases where you may not use a service ever again, thereby leaving access to your Instagram account and its data with them.
Feature #1
New authorization screen to check information being accessed
Now, to help users keep a track of connected services, Instagram is adding a new app authorization screen that appears whenever you try to connect a third-party app.
It seeks explicit consent for data sharing by showing the name of the app trying to connect as well as the kind of information being requested by it - photos, captions, profile information et al.
Feature #2
Way to check, remove already connected apps
In addition to the authorization screen, Instagram is also adding an option to see all the apps that are already connected to your Instagram account and accessing its data.
To use it, simply head over to Settings > Security > Apps and Websites and click on Active. Here, it'll show the names of connected apps as well as provide a button to remove them.
Roll out
Roll out may take some time
The new capabilities are useful but Instagram says they will be rolled out to public in almost six months.
Now, this seems pretty odd as most new features become available within a few weeks of being announced.
Instagram has not said why it's taking time, but in our case, the feature has already appeared on a test device running Instagram.