According to Engadget, Meta provides several settings to reduce how Instagram leverages off-app activity, business-shared data, and cross-account information for ad targeting and AI model training. But there's no master kill switch. Meta continues harvesting signals from everything you do inside Instagram itself.
Most users face the same privacy bargain. You're not choosing whether Meta collects data—you're choosing which collection methods to make slightly harder. Toggling privacy settings doesn't stop tracking. It just narrows the pipeline while the core surveillance infrastructure stays live.
Engadget's key finding: off-app data represents only one layer of Meta's profile. Even with those restrictions enabled, Meta retains searches, follows, watch time, clicks, device identifiers, and location signals. Limiting off-app data helps, but it's not the same as opting out.
Meta's product design tells the story. It hands you a bucket while the pipe stays open. People hear " privacy settings " and assume control. They're actually getting a narrower form of surveillance repackaged as personalization inside Instagram and across Meta's AI products.
Filed to the Technology desk · Aug 22