A new app called “Wrapped for Instagram” — that claims to show users who are looking at their profiles — has gone viral this week. However, the app is already causing privacy concerns.
Millions of people have downloaded Wrapped for Instagram — a third-party app not associated with the platform or its parent company, Meta — leading the app to soar to the top of Apple’s App Store charts in the U.S. this weekend.
instagram wrapped is insane 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/xwAYYDWbTU
— mother jeongyeon (@motherjeon97) November 4, 2023
The app, which launched in September and is owned by Wrapped Labs, claims to show Instagram users data about their usage habits and details about other users who viewed or took screenshots of their profiles.
Social media users have been showing off their Wrapped statistics in a new online trend that is similar to “Spotify Wrapped” — which allows individuals to look back at their most listened-to songs and podcasts on the streaming platform.
After downloading the Wrapped for Instagram app, which is currently only available on iOS, a user needs to follow the on-screen prompts to connect their Instagram account to the third-party app.
Once the account is linked, Wrapped will start the process of generating a personalized year-end report of a person’s Instagram activity.
Wrapped purportedly tells users the number of hours they spent on Instagram in 2023, their top online friends, the number of people who blocked them, and other statistics.
Wrapped also claims to present Instagram users with details about how many people screenshot their posts, how many users have blocked them, and who looked at their profile.
Is Wrapped for Instagram Safe?
Amid the surge of interest in Wrapped for Instagram, many users have been concerned that data from their Instagram accounts may be exposed after sharing their information with the third-party app.
@prescottoktok something is feeling a bit too sketchy ! #instagramwrapped #fyp #scam #instagram #trend ♬ nhạc nền – user7dt24nwwtz
Digital Trends reports that when users launched the Wrapped app for the first time, it asks them to connect your Instagram account by entering their login credentials. And users have raised concerns on Reddit and other social media platforms that the app is collecting login credentials for stealing data and hacking accounts.
“For a better experience, while using our Service, we may require you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information,” Wrapped’s developer, Wrapped Labs, says in its privacy policy.
“The information that we request will be retained by us and used as described in this privacy policy.”
According to NBC News, some other Instagram users who have tried the wildly popular app have said the analytics seem off-target and randomized, with some claiming the data appeared to be false because of several inconsistencies.
oh hunni thanks God it’s fake I did the Instagram Wrapped twice and it gave me two different things pic.twitter.com/LPcqlE2lJb
— ✿💋!¡ ɐıssǝlɐ (BBL Love – Interlude 🐾) (@aIessiaa) November 4, 2023
However, a spokesperson for Wrapped tells NBC News that its team has “great confidence” in the accuracy of its results but that the developers cannot reveal details about how it works to prevent others from copying it.
The Wrapped spokesperson also tells the news outlet that accusations that the app is a tool to exploit user data are “not only blatantly false, but could not be further from the truth.”
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Instagram’s parent company Meta tells NBC News that the Wrapped app “violates our policies and we’ve asked Apple to remove it from the App Store.” The spokesperson did not cite which violation and declined to comment further.