Bad news Instagram users, a recent announcement by news publishing website Quartz revealed a flaw in Instagram's privacy policy stating photos tagged private are still accessible to public. 

Online photo-sharing and social networking service that allows users to take pictures and videos and share them on numerous social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr, Instagram was launched in October 2010 and was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.

In April 2012, the service was acquired by Facebook for around $1 billion in cash and stock.

Recently, an internet news publishing website Quartz exposed flaw in Instagram's privacy policies. The privacy flaw reportedly showed that photos uploaded by Instagram users are accessible to the public domain despite tagged as private. Instagram already recognized the flaw and has come up with a patch that will fix it before it poses a threat to Instagram users.

The publication notes that the exploit only worked on the web while accessing the now-private photos in Instagram's Android or iOS apps proved futile. Instagram is distributed through the Apple Store, Google Play and Windows Phone Store.

Instagram's parent company, Facebook has been in the center of privacy and security related scrutiny for its ho-hum protocol as far as protecting its 1.5 billion user's privacy is concerned. Comparatively, the photo-sharing service is rarely questioned for its privacy protocol while Facebook has not been up to the task of providing its users with the much-needed privacy and security.

With a combined figure of around 2 billion monthly users, Facebook and Instagram are two of the biggest social networking sites today. Despite the fact that Facebook has been plagued with privacy and security issues for a long time now, Instagram on the other hand has firmly hold its ground in providing privacy to its users. Sadly, this recent breach of their privacy protocol may prove otherwise.

In order to ensure Instagram does not lose users as a result of privacy and security issues, the photo-sharing website will have to create a new security policy to retain its users trust in handling their personal information.

Are you surprised that Instagram flawed big time in its security and privacy policies? Let us know what you think in the comments below!