In a shocking revelation, Instagram can track your online activity, including text choices and even text input, such as passwords, confidential credit card information, and more. According to an analysis conducted by Felix Krause on the iOS platform, Instagram can track the web activity of the users through an in-app browser.

The report says that it can track users’ text choices and text input, credit card information, as well as passwords and other confidential details. This is possible if users click on the link inside the app. The latest report claims that Instagram, as well as Facebook, use their own in-app browser. Most of the apps on Apple iPhones use the default Safari browser. However, these social media platforms use their own in-app browsers to open websites or links within the app, MacRumors reported.

“This allows Instagram to monitor everything happening on external websites without the consent from the user, nor the website provider. The Instagram app injects its tracking code into every website shown, including when clicking on ads, enabling them to monitor all user interactions, like every button & link tapped, text selections, screenshots, as well as any form inputs, like passwords, addresses, and credit card numbers,” Krause mentioned in his report.

Krause pointed out that the in-built browser of both the social media platforms Instagram and Facebook is based on WebKit. The report says that these social media platforms inject a tracking JavaScript code-named “Meta Pixel” into all links on the app. In return, this in-app browser allows Instagram to track almost everything that a user browses on an external website without their knowledge.

However, Meta on its developer portal mentioned that, “the Meta Pixel is a snippet of JavaScript code that allows you to track visitor activity on your website. It works by loading a small library of functions which you can use whenever a site visitor takes an action (called an event) that you want to track (called a conversion).” Notably, it indicates there is no confirmation that Meta-owned social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have gathered the user data or not.

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