My Instagram Knows Where I Live and So Does Everyone Else

Okay, this one’s a little embarrassing to admit. While writing my last two posts, I actually went and checked my own Instagram privacy settings for the first time in… honestly, I genuinely don’t know how long. Public account, location tags on basically every single post, old check-ins from literally my hometown still sitting there from years ago that I’d completely forgotten I ever posted.

Nothing bad has actually happened because of it, as far as I know. But after everything I learned about phishing in my last post, it hit me that all of that public info is basically a free profile handed straight to anyone trying to scam or impersonate me — no effort required on their end at all.

Why this connects to everything else I’ve written

Remember how I said phishing emails feel convincing because they seem to know things about you already? A lot of that info comes straight from public social profiles — your school, your friends, your location, your daily routine, even your specific interests. Cybercriminals can piece together personal details from public accounts to make impersonation attempts significantly more convincing than a generic, guessed-at message ever could be. It’s not even some advanced hacker technique when you think about it — it’s just reading someone’s bio and recent posts carefully, the same way anyone could.

Apparently I’m not the only one who forgot about this

In one widely cited privacy survey, **79.2% of people said they’d adjusted their privacy settings at some point, and 23% had deleted a profile entirely** over privacy concerns. So people clearly do care, at least in theory, at least when asked directly. But a lot of us — myself included, until literally last week — just never actually go back and check what’s public versus what should be private by now, even after saying we care.

It gets weirder too — apparently **71% of users allow location tracking on social platforms, and 62% of them don’t even realize it’s enabled by default**. That second number is the one that actually got me. It’s not that people don’t care about privacy, it’s that a lot of this stuff is quietly on by default and nobody goes digging through settings menus to find it.

It’s not just Instagram either

LinkedIn quietly has your exact job history, direct contact info, and location details sitting there for basically anyone to find with minimal effort. Even platforms where you barely post still build a cumulative trail through likes, replies, and follows — small actions that, stacked together over time, reveal more about your habits and views than most people would ever guess while it’s happening in real time.

What I actually fixed in one sitting

• Switched my account from public to private
• Turned off location tagging going forward on new posts
• Went back and manually removed old location tags sitting there for years
• Checked which random third-party apps still had access to my account — there were more than I expected, a few I didn’t even remember connecting in the first place
• Decided to start posting travel pics after I’m actually back home, not live in real time while I’m still there

None of this took long, honestly — maybe fifteen minutes total, less time than I usually spend picking out one Instagram caption if I’m being fully honest. Which is kind of the whole point of this series, looking back on all three posts together now: none of this stuff is actually hard. We just never sit down and do it until something almost goes wrong first, and by then it’s already a little too late.

Between weak passwords, convincing fake emails, and oversharing profiles, it’s basically the same lesson repeated three times over in slightly different forms — small habits genuinely are the entire difference between “fine” and “not fine.” Worth the twenty minutes, honestly, looking back on it with a bit more perspective now than I had a few weeks ago.

Post 1: [https://medium.com/@abeljr85/i-reused-the-same-password-since-8th-grade-heres-what-finally-made-me-stop-e3af4aabda12](https://medium.com/@abeljr85/i-reused-the-same-password-since-8th-grade-heres-what-finally-made-me-stop-e3af4aabda12)