Uncovering Unseen Data from Android Apps: A Forensic Journey on YouTube and Instagram

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-768-2_11How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Instagram; YouTube; Forensic Analysis; Digital; Social Media; Digital evidence; Privacy Concerns; Data Retention

Abstract

Instagram and YouTube are presently trending with short video content, as much as with the Reels and Shorts that draw engagement. Influencer marketing and live streaming are still hot in this space. On the downside, they have also seen a spike in crimes, including phishing, malware distribution, and quite a few types of scams. This calls for the conduct of robust forensic analysis: to retrieve deleted data, to trace user activity, and to bring vendors to justice. Forensic analysis has become increasingly important for collecting digital evidence, protecting users, and pursuing law and order in cyberspace due to the continuous evolution of cybercriminal methods, especially with the aid of AI. In this research, we studied Instagram and YouTube on Redmi Note 11 and Samsung J4 Android devices and separated the phones used for content creation and engagement. To analyse app and browser interactions, Magnet Axiom and ADB were used. The main findings we have presented with such considerations discuss the differences and similarities between users in their interaction over platforms, given the evolving private features such as encryption and ephemeral content and cloud storage effects.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this license to share adapted material derived from this chapter or parts of it.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Prince Kumar
AU  - Ekbal Rasid
AU  - Ritushree Narayan
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/07
TI  - Uncovering Unseen Data from Android Apps: A Forensic Journey on YouTube and Instagram
BT  - Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Recent Advances in Computing Sciences (RACS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 97
EP  - 104
SN  - 1951-6851
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-768-2_11
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-768-2_11
ID  - Kumar2026
ER  -