Millions of influencers and personalities on Instagram had their private email addresses and phone numbers left exposed on an unprotected online database, TechCrunch reports.
The public database contained the records on millions of prominent Instagram users, according to TechCrunch. The website said the database had more than 49 million records of high-profile celebrities, bloggers, brands, and more.
An Instagram spokesperson told Business Insider that the team is "looking into the issue" to see if the private data was obtained from the photo-sharing platform.
"Scraping of all kind is against our Terms of Use and we will take action on sites we find in violation of our terms," the spokesperson said.
The database was reportedly created by a social-media-marketing firm called Chtrbox, which is based in India. TechCrunch said the database was taken offline shortly after it contacted Chtrbox.
The database, which also contained public information like follower counts and locations, was used to determine the "worth" of each Instagram account and to see how much booking an influencer for an ad or sponsored post would cost, according to TechCrunch.
Instagram says it's reached out to Chtrbox "to understand where this data came from and how it became publicly available."
