Instagram privacy policy: Requirements for businesses
Instagram has over 2 billion monthly active users worldwide, with users spending more than 33 minutes a day on the platform. This large active user base provides substantial opportunities for businesses to reach potential customers and has made Instagram a cornerstone of the creator economy, with 86 percent of creators and 90 percent of brands planning to focus their marketing efforts on the platform.
When your business uses Instagram, you often share your audience’s personal data with the platform — or receive data through integrated tools — and you are responsible for informing users about how their data is collected, processed, and shared.
Instagram operates under parent company Meta’s umbrella and does not have a standalone privacy policy. Its data practices are governed by Meta’s privacy policy, which also applies to Facebook and other Meta-owned services.
We’ve gone into detail about Meta’s data processing practices in our article on Facebook’s privacy policy, many of which overlap with Instagram’s terms.
Read more about Facebook’s privacy policy.
This article explores the specific requirements for including Instagram usage in your privacy policy and how to meet both Meta’s platform requirements and applicable data protection regulations.
What data does Instagram collect?
Instagram collects similar types of data as Facebook, including personal details, engagement activity, and technical information from connected devices.
- User-provided information: Email address, phone number, date of birth, profile photo, and payment or delivery details when users make purchases through Meta Pay or checkout features
- User activity: Posts, likes, comments, shares, messages, and interactions with ads or other content
- App, browser, and device information: Device type, operating system, battery and signal status, IP address, app version, network, GPS location, and access to photos or camera
Instagram also receives personal data from businesses that use Meta Business Tools, including pages visited, purchases made, or in-app actions that users take.
How does Instagram use this data?
Instagram uses personal data collected from users and businesses for a range of purposes described in Meta’s privacy policy.
- Personalization (including ads): To deliver tailored content, show targeted ads, and help businesses reach people likely to be interested in their products or services
- Product improvement: To fix bugs, improve app performance, and develop new features based on user behavior and technical data
- Safety and security: To detect and prevent spam, harmful behavior, fraud, or suspicious activity
- Measurement and analytics: To provide reports and insights on engagement and ad performance
Instagram may also share personal data with third parties, such as advertisers, commerce and service partners, vendors and service providers, and academic and public interest researchers.
Meta states that it does not sell personal information, but this type of sharing may still qualify as a “sale” under laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)/California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) even without monetary exchange.
Instagram features that impact privacy requirements
While most of Instagram’s data practices mirror Facebook’s, several platform-specific features create distinct privacy disclosure requirements that businesses must address.
These platform differences mean your privacy policy must account for Instagram-specific data sharing, visibility settings, and third-party integrations that affect user privacy.
Public nature of Instagram business accounts
While businesses can technically use a personal Instagram account for promotion, most choose a business or creator account to access platform features like analytics, branded content tools, and ad options. These account types offer more marketing functionality — but they cannot be set to private.
This differs from Facebook, where public Pages are the norm, but private groups and events are also available for businesses.
On Instagram, all content and engagement — including posts, Reels, Stories, likes, comments, and views — are publicly visible by default if you have a business or creator account. You can choose to enable optional granular controls, such as hiding stories from specific users, restricting comments, or hiding like counts, but these settings require your active selection as the account owner.
If you use Instagram for business and rely on these public-facing tools, your privacy policy must not suggest that your account content is limited to a specific audience or protected by privacy settings.
This public visibility means any Instagram user, except those you’ve specifically blocked, can view basic information about other users:
- Who interact with your content, including their likes and comments
- Whose content you reshare or accounts you tag
Your privacy policy must not suggest that your account content or user interaction is limited to a specific audience or protected by privacy settings.
Business and creator accounts also have access to a wider range of third-party tools used for functions like scheduling or analytics, and you may also be sharing personal data with these third-party tools.
Use of third-party “link in bio” tools
Instagram doesn’t support clickable links in post captions, so many businesses turn to third-party “link in bio” tools to direct users to websites, product pages, or other content.
These services typically consolidate multiple links into a single landing page, accessible through your Instagram profile bio.
When users tap these links, they’re opening them in Instagram’s in-app mobile browser, and Instagram may save that visit to a link history for up to 30 days. Users can manage this history from their account settings, including the ability to remove individual links, clear all link history, or turn link history off entirely.
However, when link history is on, Instagram states it may use that data to improve ad targeting across Meta technologies.
If you use a third-party link in bio service — or direct users to your own website through your Instagram bio — your privacy policy must disclose any data collection, tracking technologies, or cookies set by these tools or your website, and Meta. This includes any analytics or advertising pixels that may be triggered when users visit the linked page through these tools.
Instagram collaborative posts
Instagram’s collaborative post feature enables multiple accounts to co-author posts, giving all collaborators access to two types of data:
- Public engagement data, such as the usernames of who liked and commented
- Aggregate analytics, such as views, reach, saves, demographic insights
When your followers engage with these collaborative posts, their public interactions become visible to all collaborating accounts, even though these users typically only interact with your individual content.
The aggregate metrics are anonymized and don’t include personally identifiable information (PII). Including this in your privacy policy isn’t legally required, but it supports transparency about how your followers’ engagement becomes visible to other accounts through collaborative posts.
Data processing and transparency in your Instagram privacy policy
Transparency is a core requirement under most data privacy laws, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the CCPA/CPRA.
These regulations require businesses to clearly explain what personal data they collect, how they use it, and who they share it with. The California privacy law, in fact, specifically mandates that businesses maintain a privacy policy explaining their data processing activities.
Meta’s platform terms reinforce this. If you use Instagram’s API to connect your website or app to the platform, or if you receive data from or share data with Meta in any way, you must maintain a privacy policy.
The combination of regulatory requirements and Instagram’s platform rules creates specific disclosure obligations that your privacy policy must address. Understanding these requirements helps you build comprehensive privacy documentation that satisfies both legal compliance and platform terms.
Instagram’s privacy policy requirements
Meta’s terms of use establish specific requirements for businesses using Instagram’s platform.
- You must provide a clear and current privacy policy. It must be available at a publicly accessible, non-geoblocked URL that Meta can crawl.
- Your privacy policy URL must be listed in your app dashboard settings.
- Your privacy policy must explain what data you collect, how you process it, why you process it, and how users can request deletion of their data.
- You may only process data shared with or obtained from the platform in ways that match your privacy policy, comply with Meta’s terms and policies, and in accordance with all applicable laws.
- Your privacy policy must not conflict with or override Meta’s own platform terms.
You must delete data that is no longer needed or when you receive a deletion request from Meta or the user to whom the data belongs.
Your privacy policy must explain how users can request data deletion or modification. This is also a regulatory requirement in most global data privacy laws.
Certain types of data use are explicitly prohibited under Meta’s terms. Your business may not:
- Process data to discriminate against individuals based on protected attributes, such as race, religion, gender, age, or disability
- Use data to determine eligibility for housing, employment, insurance, education, credit, or government benefits.
- Use Instagram data for surveillance purposes
- Sell, license, or purchase platform data
- Build or enrich user profiles without valid consent
- Attempt to reverse engineer, decode, de-anonymize, or otherwise reidentify anonymized data
- Change your app’s core function or expand how you use Instagram data without Meta’s prior approval
- Use the data in ways not permitted under Meta’s Developer Docs, or share it without a legal basis or proper user consent
While Meta’s Platform Terms don’t explicitly require you to list prohibited practices in your privacy policy, you should be aware of these prohibitions as they directly impact what you are — and aren’t — allowed to do with users’ personal data, which in turn affects your privacy policy.
Privacy policy regulatory requirements and best practices
You don’t need a separate document to cover your use of Instagram, but your existing privacy policy must include Instagram-related data practices. This includes how you collect data through the platform, use Meta Business Tools, and share information with Meta or other third parties.
In addition to meeting Instagram’s specific requirements listed above, your privacy policy must also comply with applicable data privacy laws based on your users’ locations. These may include:
- The EU’s GDPR, which also covers users in the European Economic Area (EEA)
- Multiple US state-level data privacy laws, including the CCPA/CPRA
- Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)
- Brazil’s Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados Pessoais (LGPD)
- South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA)
- Other regional or national laws where applicable
Below is a non-exhaustive checklist of the information your privacy policy should include.
- What categories of personal data and personal data you collect and share with Meta. Inform users that Meta may process the data according to its own policy.
- Include links to Meta’s Privacy Policy, Cookies Policy, and Instagram Platform Terms.
- State what rights users have under relevant laws, and how to exercise these rights, such as:
- Right to access personal data you hold about them
- Right to request deletion of their data
- Right to correct inaccurate or incomplete data
- Right to object to the processing of their personal data
- For US state-level privacy laws, the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of data, targeted advertising, or profiling — depending on which relevant law(s) — and the right to limit the use of sensitive personal data
- If you use Meta ads for behavioral targeting, provide California users the option to opt out through a “Do Not Sell Or Share My Personal Information” link.
- Explain how you collect and use data from minors in line with global regulations. Most privacy laws consider children’s personal data to be sensitive and thus require prior consent (typically from a parent or guardian), as well as more restrictions and requirements for handling and security.
- Share your contact details for users to reach out with any questions or concerns they may have about your data policies or their rights, including information about your Data Protection Officer (DPO) if you have one, or other qualified corporate privacy contact.
- Explain what cookies you use, and how users can accept or reject them. Explain to users that they have the right to change their cookie preferences at any time, and how they can do so.
- State that you use Meta Business Tools, such as the Meta Pixel or Instagram Graph API, if applicable.
Your privacy policy must be written in clear, non-legal language for anyone to understand. It should be easily accessible on your website or app. Most businesses share their privacy policies from the footer of their website and/or their app’s menu.
You’re also responsible for keeping it up to date with changes in data protection laws, Meta’s terms, or your own data handling practices.
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Usercentrics does not provide legal advice, and information is provided for educational purposes only. We always recommend engaging qualified legal counsel or privacy specialists regarding data privacy and protection issues and operations.