In a January 17-dated email to its users, the popular photo-sharing service Instagram said that it is implementing a new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service which will become effective from January 19.

Informing the users that it has updated the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service for its photo-sharing app, Instagram - which, as per recent statistics, have more than 90 million active monthly users - said that the changes made to both the policies will take effect January 19.

Noting that the changes which have been made to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service were necessary, the Instagram team said in the email that there have been a number of developments ever since the time of writing of the original policies.

The need for updated policies was apparently rooted in the fact that the Instagram site has witnessed stupendous growth, by millions of users, since its origin. Moreover, Instagram has now been acquired by social networking giant Facebook, which has - more than any other company - been confusing its users about what information shared by them is private and what is public.

In a statement towards the end of the email sent to the Instagram users, the company's team clearly stated: "These updates don't change the fact that you own your photos that you post on Instagram, and our privacy controls work just as they did before."