Your IT Consultant

How to Download Your Instagram Data

April 30, 2018

By now you have probably heard about GDPR. The Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect on May 25^th and gives EU citizens greater control over their privacy and data. As a result, companies are creating methods for users to access their data on the companies' service. You're probably aware of how to download your data from Facebook. Well, Instagram has the same feature. Logon to your account, go to your profile, click "edit profile" and then select the "privacy and security" area. You'll see a "Data download" header with a link to request a download of your data.

It may take hours or even a couple of days to package your data and deliver it to you. You will receive and e-mail with link(s) to download your data. Don't think you're going to get a nicely formatted report like you do with Facebook. The images and videos are delivered in JPG and MPEG4 formats, but all the other data is in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format. You can view the data easily enough in a text editor like Notepad, but it will take a little work to format it into something more readable. The GDPR requires data to be available in "machine readable" format and does not state "human readable." There are many free JSON file viewers out there to view the data in text or tree mode to make the data more readable even if you are not a developer.

E-mail: Phone: 703.359.0700
Digital Forensics/Information Security/Information Technology
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnsimek
https://amazon.com/author/johnsimek
https://www.senseient.com