Your address or phone number posted on Instagram: how to report it under Meta's privacy rules

If someone posted your home address, phone number, ID number or bank details on Instagram, report it from the post, the profile or the chat. Instagram says posting private and confidential information violates its Terms of Use, and Meta’s privacy violations policy removes content that shares personal contact details, full private addresses, identity numbers and financial or medical records. Two limits matter: Instagram generally needs the report to come from you (or your authorized representative), and it cannot remove copies posted elsewhere.

If you are being threatened, or someone has turned up where you live, contact the police first and report second.

The short answer

• Address, phone, email, ID numbers, bank details, medical records: report the post or account. These are the clearest cases.
• Report it yourself. Instagram acts on private information when it belongs to the person reporting it, or with proof of authorization.
• Threats to post your details are a violation in themselves. Report them, and tell the police.
• Photos and videos of you go through a separate privacy form, and whether they are removed depends on the privacy law where you live.
• Messages: report the chat, not only the profile.
• Google results: use Google’s Results about you tool for your phone number, home address or email.

What Meta removes

Meta’s privacy violations policy applies to Instagram as it does to Facebook and Threads. It removes content that shares, offers or asks for private information “that could lead to physical or financial harm”. In practice that includes:

• Identity numbers and documents: national ID numbers such as social security or passport numbers, civil registry records, and immigration documents such as visas or work permits.
• Personal contact information of others, such as a private phone number or email address.
• Residential information: a full private address, including a building name or a pin on a map, even if the address sits in an off-platform link. Partial addresses are removed in some contexts, for example when shared to organize protests at, or surveillance of, someone’s home.
• Images of the outside of your home, in some cases: broadly, when the image and its caption identify the home, its location and you as the resident, you object, and the home is not the focus of a news story.
• Medical, psychological, biometric or genetic information when it clearly comes from medical records or other official documents.
• Financial information, such as non-public financial records, or card and bank details with security codes.
• Anything from a hacked source, whoever it is about.

Instagram’s own help page on exposed private information gives a shorter list in the same spirit: credit card information, social security or national identity numbers, private address or location information, non-public phone numbers and non-public email addresses.

What usually stays up

Instagram warns that “though you may believe certain information is private, not all content of this type is in violation of our terms.” The policy itself explains why:

• Information you made public. Personal contact details are allowed when the person has made them public, for example a phone number on your own website or business profile.
• Information already public through official channels. Meta says private information can become publicly available through news coverage, court filings or press releases, and that it may then allow it.
• Contact details shared to reach a business or service provider, unless it is established that they were shared without the person’s consent.
• Information Instagram cannot reach. Instagram says it cannot take down private information that is posted publicly somewhere other than Instagram or Threads.

If the post is not your details but a claim about you, a rumor or an accusation, privacy is the wrong report. Look at the bullying and harassment rules instead, or at a legal route if the claim is false.

Who has to report

This is the rule that decides most failed reports. Instagram says it “can only take action on private information if it’s associated with the person reporting it” or if it receives documentation that the reporter is authorized to act for the person whose information was posted. A friend’s report about your address is unlikely to be enough on its own. Report it from your own account, or have a lawyer or other authorized representative do it.

Reports are anonymous, except intellectual property reports. The account you report will not see who reported it.

How to report

1. Save the evidence first. Screenshot the post, the account name and the date, and copy the post URL. Do this before reporting; posts disappear and accounts get renamed.
2. Report the post. Tap Options on the post, then Report, and follow the on-screen options. Instagram’s reporting page lists the current top-level reasons; choose the path that matches your information being shared.
3. Report the account if it was created to expose you or keeps doing it.
4. Report messages from the chat. Instagram says the team that reviews profiles does not have access to direct messages, so a report from the profile will not show them what was sent to you.
5. Ask the poster, only if it is safe. Instagram suggests asking the person directly to take it down. If there is any hostility, skip this step.

Threats to post your details

You do not have to wait until it happens. Meta’s bullying and harassment policy protects everyone from “threats to release an individual’s private phone number, residential address, email address or medical records”. Instagram’s page on threats to share private images or personal info recommends three steps: contact local law enforcement, report the person to Instagram, and block them.

Photos and videos of you

A photo or video of you is handled differently from your address. Instagram says it removes posts reported as unauthorized “if this is required by relevant privacy laws in your country”, provided the content involves you, your child under 13, or someone you legally represent. Meta’s policy applies this to adults who report from outside the United States where applicable law may provide a right to removal. For adults in the US, Meta’s wording does not offer this route, so an unwanted photo needs another basis, such as bullying or impersonation.

The route is Instagram’s privacy violation report form. It asks who you are reporting for and needs the URL of each photo or video, one per line; Instagram says it cannot process the report without a link. Minors aged 13 or over must submit it themselves.

Intimate images are covered by a separate policy, with no country condition. Our guide to intimate images shared without consent covers that route.

After Instagram: Google and other platforms

Removal from Instagram does not clean search results. Google’s Results about you tool lets you request removal of results that show your phone number, home address or email address. Google is clear that removing a result does not remove the information from the website itself, and it may refuse results from sources such as government or educational sites.

Doxxing rarely stays on one platform. If the same details appear elsewhere, our guides to removing private information from X and doxxing on Reddit cover those platforms’ rules, which differ from Meta’s.

What not to do

• Do not repost the post to call it out. A screenshot of your own address spreads your address.
• Do not organize a reporting campaign. Your own report, as the person concerned, is the one Instagram’s rule asks for.
• Do not pay for “guaranteed” removal. Nobody outside Meta decides reports, and services that ask for your login details create a second problem.

When to get help

A single post with your address or phone number can usually be reported by you, today, with the steps above. Help is worth it when the details keep reappearing from new accounts, when they are combined with threats, impersonation or a hate page, when a photo case depends on your country’s privacy law, or when you need an evidence file for a lawyer or the police. That is the work behind our unauthorized content removal service: the right report for each item, Meta’s official channels only, a written record and no guarantees. If something posted about you is lawful, we will tell you. You can start with a free case review.