Threads—Exactly How Private Is Meta’s New Twitter Challenger?

A week ago, most people hadn’t even heard of Threads, Meta’s new Twitter rival. Fast-forward to now and Threads is the most rapidly downloaded app ever, having reached 30 million users just 16 hours after launch.

But as Threads launched and shot into the mainstream, lots of people have voiced concerns about privacy. After all, Threads is owned by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg—and everyone knows how much data Meta collects and uses to profile people. It’s also interesting that Threads has not launched into the EU, apparently due to concerns over data protection rules.

Here’s everything you need to know about data collection and privacy on Threads, including what happens to your Instagram account if you decide to delete the new app.

How Much Data Does Threads Collect?

Threads collects a lot of data. According to the privacy label, which I sourced from Apple’s App store, data linked to you includes your location, health and fitness information, browsing history, “sensitive information” and search history. This also includes your contact information such as physical address, email and phone number.

Data including your search history and browsing history can also be used for advertising and marketing and “personalisation”—in other words, showing you ads. Threads isn’t showing ads just yet, but make no mistake, with this amount of lucrative data available, it will.

As digital marketing site Digiday writes: “While there hasn’t been any mention of monetization or ads on the platform just yet, this is Meta after all. Chances are there will be ads on Threads soon.”

If You Delete Threads, Does it Delete Instagram?

As Threads launched yesterday, it quickly became clear that if you delete the app, you also have to delete Instagram. As Lisa Forte, a cybersecurity expert and founder at Red Goat Cybersecurity points out, that certainly gives Meta a solid user base to start from.

You can deactivate Threads, but that doesn’t delete your account. When people deactivate Facebook, the social network can still track them across services.

Meta confirmed this in an email. “At this time, you can’t delete your Threads profile without deleting your Instagram account. This is something we’re working on,” a spokesperson wrote.

Deactivating your Threads profile will not deactivate your Instagram account, Meta added. If you deactivate your Threads profile, your posts and interactions with others’ posts won’t be visible on Threads unless you reactivate it.

How Bad Is Threads Privacy, Compared to Instagram?

On the face of it, Threads data collection is a horror show, but it isn’t any worse than Instagram. “At first glance the privacy nutrition label of Threads looks awful, but as soon as you compare it to Instagram’s label, you figure out that Instagram isn’t any better,” says security researcher Tommy Mysk.

The only difference is that Threads does not use any collected data to track users. “On the other hand, Instagram discloses that it uses contact information and other identifiers to track users,” Mysk explains.

“If people are already invested in Instagram, I think the natural step of adopting Threads is a straightforward move at no extra cost to privacy,” says Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at ESET.

However, he adds that Threads could “quite possibly start ramping up its aggressiveness similar to the likes of TikTok in hauling personal data from users as time passes.”

Of course, if you don’t use Instagram, you should probably stay away from any Meta product. “New users should know that Threads is just another Meta app where user data is the product,” warns Mysk.

How Bad Is Threads Privacy, Compared to Twitter?

A lot of people have been looking for a Twitter alternative, following Elon Musk’s purchase and arguable decimation of the social platform. In terms of your privacy, Meta’s Threads is not it. Looking at the Twitter privacy label, the social network does still link your browsing history, purchase history and device IDs to you, so it’s still a hefty list—although perhaps marginally shorter than Threads.

Those who think Twitter may be more private must also understand that “this is right now, at this point in time,” Moore warns. “We have learned that Musk can be rather irrational and simply changing data tracking could be easily done in an app update.”

Should I Download Threads?

You might have downloaded it already, but if you are waiting, there’s no big harm in using Threads if you are already an Instagram user. However, if you don’t use Instagram and you care about privacy, stay away from Threads for now.

If you must use it, Threads owner Meta also offers tools to view, manage, download and delete your Threads information by visiting your Instagram settings. The Help Centre also helps manage your settings for Threads and Instagram, and your device-based settings.

While Threads collects a lot of data, there are ways to protect your privacy—especially if you just use it via an app on your smartphone. Use a VPN, a private browser such as DuckDuckGo, revoke the app’s access to things such as location—and iPhone users can take advantage of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature to stop Threads having access to data from other apps.