Instagram Will Start Sharing User Data With Facebook

Instagram has announced an update to its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy that goes into affect starting January 16, 2013. Since being acquired by Facebook in September 2012 both tech firms have been working to better integrate with the social network. Thenew Terms of Service and Privacy Policy reflects deeper integration.

According to an Instagram blog post:

“Our updated privacy policy helps Instagram function more easily as part of Facebook by being able to share info between the two groups. This means we can do things like fight spam more effectively, detect system and reliability problems more quickly, and build better features for everyone by understanding how Instagram is used.”

The biggest addition to the Instagram Terms of Service and Privacy Policy involves adding “Affiliates” to its available vendors. Affiliate of course refers to Facebook:

“We may share User Content and your information (including but not limited to, information from cookies, log files, device identifiers, location data, and usage data) with businesses that are legally part of the same group of companies that Instagram is part of, or that become part of that group (“Affiliates”). Affiliates may use this information to help provide, understand, and improve the Service (including by providing analytics) and Affiliates’ own services (including by providing you with better and more relevant experiences). But these Affiliates will honor the choices you make about who can see your photos.”

This update comes shortly after Facebook’s Site Governance vote ended and changes proposed from that vote prepare to go into affect. One change from the site governance vote was allowing Facebook to share data to and from its affiliates such as Instagram.

With the Site Governance vote out of the way both social networks are moving forward to further deepen their integration with one another. Instagram users may soon see the ability to log in with Facebook and to gain access to Facebook data.

When the day comes to monetize Facebook will have a gold mine of information to better target ads.