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Millions of 'private' photos on Instagram have been made available for public viewing following a bug on the social media site.

The California-based company became aware of the flaw after David Yanofsky at Quartz highlighted the issue.

The company has now issued a patch, after appearing to suggest that the functionality was intentional, rather than a flaw in their system.

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Countless 'private' photos on Instagram have been made available for public viewing following a bug on the social media site. The company became aware of the flaw after David Yanofsky at Quartz highlighted the issue

Before the fix, if an Instagram account was set to private, but a user cross posted links to their Instagram photos on other social media platforms, those photos would have become public.

This meant that if an individual posted an image, and then decided they wanted it private, anyone could share that photo by copying its URL.

In a statement to Quartz, an Instagram representative said: 'If you choose to share a specific piece of content from your account publicly, that link remains public but the account itself is still private,' the representative said.

'On Instagram, we offer a way for people to see photos on the web or share them to other services,' an instagram spokesperson told Dailymail.com.

'In response to feedback, we made an update so that if people change their profile from public to private, web links that are not shared on other services are only viewable to their followers on Instagram.' 

Before the fix, if an Instagram account was set to private, but a user cross posted links to their Instagram photos on other social media platforms, those photos would have become public 

The Quartz report said: 'The Instagram loophole is an example of the sort of complexity that ordinary users are required to navigate if they aim to control the online availability of personal information such as photos.' 

Even with the loophole closed, anyone is still able to share your images online without your permission by viewing the page source, or by taking a screen shot. 

Instagram's parent company, Facebook, has been plagued by privacy issues in recent months. 

It has also been fighting lawsuits claiming it fails to ensure personal data is safeguarded from marketers and third-party apps.

The group agreed with a US government agency to submit to external audits of how well it guards users' data.

But Facebook has faced a backlash in recent months after it forced its users to download its Messenger app.

Many raised concerns about the app's permissions, that give Facebook access to send texts and make calls on the user's device.

According to Google Play, the app has access to find accounts on the device, read contacts, access the user's, as well as edit, read and receive text messages.

Other permissions give Facebook the ability to directly call phone numbers, modify or delete files on USB storage, take pictures and videos, record audio, download files without notification, control vibration and change network connectivity. 

Find out how the new Instagram filters work on your phone...

Even with the loophole closed, anyone is still able to share your images online without your permission by viewing the page source, or by taking a screen shot