In 2016, Snapchat’s net worth was nearly $22 billion. The social media platform has recently made a huge comeback as it’s stock price has more than doubled since the start of 2019 and continues to rise. Largely popular among adolescents around the world because of the convenient, short chats, Snapchat has made its mark in the social media industry. Snapchat now serves as more than just a communication platform for it’s users. Third party companies are now getting more and more involved which has allowed for a more personal user experience than ever before. Because of the recent personalization of the app, I decided to read deeper into what really goes on within Snapchat. In my opinion, the best place to start, their privacy policy.
Snapchat is what I would consider a very tech-savvy company. They know all about what the people want and how to provide users with the best experience possible. At the beginning of the privacy policy, Snapchat offers its users a brief summary of the article. They realize that users would rather utilize their time doing something way more interesting than a full privacy policy that probably will never affect them throughout their time using the app. Now that’s what I call knowing your users.
After a few brief paragraphs about the company and the background of it’s privacy policy, the article begins to list what kind of information is collected. This section talks about the information users supply along with the information collected by using Snapchat’s services. The information users supply is pretty generic for any social platform. The company only collects your name, username, password and birthday… only the essentials to create an account. In this section, the policy also states that it may ask for credit card information if a user requests to use certain services though it is not mandatory to enter any of this information. After talking about the information users supply, the policy pivots to talking about what information Snapchat collects. This data includes items like usage, content information (custom stickers, for example) and device information (browser type, IP address, etc). There is other information that Snapchat may collect but that requires the users permission (contact book, location, etc). Finally, the policy talks about what data Snapchat collects from third parties. The company may collect data from your Bitmoji, certain advertisers, or in-app games to enhance the user experience by customizing what each individual sees to create a fully personalized Snapchat for all of its users.
The policy then completely switches gears to inform readers about how they store information and who they share it with. The policy states that the company likes to live in the moment so once a Snapchat is opened, it will most-likely be automatically deleted from their servers. However, there are occasions in which Snapchat will save something in it’s cloud for an extended period of time. This information includes things such as the locations of your favorite places if you gave the company permission to view your location, and personalized stickers created by the users themselves so they are readily accessible. They also store basic information like your username and password until users ask the company to delete them. After talking about information storage, the policy makes it clear who Snapchat shares your information with. Snapchat shares very basic information with other Snapchatters and the general public as a whole. This information that is available to anyone willing to look for it includes your name, username, Bitmoji, and birthday. However, there is other, more important information that Snapchat may share with business partners and third parties. Snapchat says they may share information about you to optimize your experience. This information can include what ads you look at and device usage information. They also may share information to ensure the public’s safety and security. The only other reason they would share information about users with third parties is if there is an acquisition or merger.
After reading all about the privacy policy, I immediately had many questions. How can we ensure that Snapchat doesn’t save any private pictures meant only for another user? Will Snapchat maintain your privacy in the court of law? How many third parties are receiving my information? Is Snapchat always listening to me even when I’m in the app but not recording? These are just a few of the many many questions I have about Snapchat’s privacy policy.
We have had a lot of conversations about privacy policies in my DCI class. The main thing we talk about is how people never actually read the privacy policies for social media platforms so they don’t know how to protect themselves online. The common person does not know what kind of information is being collected about them and that data is essential in protecting themselves online. Many of the major social platforms are trying to enhance the user experience by personalizing user accounts so that they only see what is relevant to them. While this is sometimes helpful, it is also creating major issues especially in the news world. I would say that the majority of people now get their news online so personalized sources bias people on different issues. The general public needs to understand how much power these social companies have and need to learn how to protect themselves so that their data does not get spread to tech companies all over the globe.
Attached is an interview I conducted regarding privacy policies.
