Instagram jacked some poor sap’s handle and gave it to British royalty

Image: Josh Edelson / AFP / Getty

Your Instagram handle is a very personal thing that in no uncertain terms does not belong to you. 

A British man found that out the hard way this week, when he awoke to discover that his Instagram handle had been snatched right out from under him and given to someone just a tad bit more popular. Specifically, that would be members of the British royal family. 

Kevin Keiley, reports the BBC, is just your average Reading Football Club fan living in the UK’s West Sussex. His Instagram handle, sussexroyal, referred to the football club’s nickname and his place of residence. It was also, apparently, fancied by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. 

And so it was taken from him. Importantly, unlike the many stories of accounts stolen by malicious hackers, the bad actor in this case was Instagram itself.

Keiley told the BBC’s Radio 1 Newsbeat that no one at the social media company contacted him about handing over the sussexroyal handle, and that he’s “annoyed” about the entire thing. He says he used the account mainly to follow other accounts and like posts. 

Mashable reached out to Keiley via his Twitter account for comment, but received no response as of press time. 

Notably, Instagram confirmed to the BBC that it snatched the sussexroyal handle from Keiley — saying the account was inactive and thus ripe for the picking. But just what, exactly, does “inactive” mean? Could an infrequently used account suddenly become “inactive” in the eyes of Instagram the moment a famous person wants it?

On a help page dedicated to explaining inactive accounts, the company goes out of its way to provide as little specificity as possible. 

“An account is determined to be inactive based on a number of things, including the date the account was created and whether the account has been sharing photos, commenting on photos, liking photos and logging in,” reads the page. “Keep in mind that you may not be able to tell whether an account is currently inactive since not all account activity can be seen by the public.”

We reached out to Instagram in an effort to determine just how it decides whether or not an account is inactive, and thus vulnerable to being reclaimed by the company, but received no response as of press time. 

However, we can offer you one metric that likely puts your handle at risk of being taken away: Someone more famous than you wants it.