The release of Snapchat’s updated privacy policy and terms of service has caused a social media uproar after the picture sharing app included a minor detail that it now owns every photo and video shared on its platform.
Snapchat is usually a platform where people can share photos with the knowledge that the image will disappear quickly. But Snapchat’s TOS and privacy policy were both updated over the weekend and users of the social media platform were not impressed.
By agreeing to the update, users gave Snapchat permission to “a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to host, store, use, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, edit, publish, create derivative works from, publicly perform, broadcast, distribute, syndicate, promote, exhibit, and publicly display that content in any form and in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).”
Twitter, predictably, lost its mind over the update:
when u actually read the new snapchat privacy policy and it basically says you have no privacy. feds.
— daja powell ☥ (@_dajaura) November 1, 2015
Snapchat privacy policy makes me wanna delete my account and the app… — Rihanna Tesfaye (@kingkiraa) November 1, 2015
for an app that was designed to quickly delete data and keep things private, there’s quite an irony in snapchat’s actual privacy policy
— ❀ shigufa ❀ (@ohmyshigupie) October 31, 2015
deleted snapchat because of their shady privacy policy. pic.twitter.com/DQcZyaIgeN — leia (@everIastingtay) October 30, 2015
Well, the Snapchat updated terms of service & privacy policy basically admits they will access your photos or anything you send via Snapchat
— Mikey (@DigitalBro95) October 29, 2015
if everyone read the privacy policy for snapchat.. no one would use it anymore — Sara (@shea_sara) October 29, 2015
Thanks for the update, @Snapchat. I’m deleting your app now, along with my account. Your privacy policy is a joke. #WayToRuinAGoodThing
— Pete (@peteywalk) October 28, 2015
Snapchat: “Hey we’re gonna invade your privacy and not delete your snaps from our servers and take phone info but hey look at these filters”
— Pookie (@ThotPuncher) November 1, 2015
The company quickly went into damage control:
We are not stockpiling your private Snaps! Our updated Privacy Policy & Terms of Service explained https://t.co/rQhFzmB2rj
— Snapchat (@Snapchat) November 2, 2015
In the blogpost, Snapchat promised it was not storing the videos and pictures sent over the platform: “Snapchat is not—and never has been—stockpiling your private Snaps or Chats. And because we continue to delete them from our servers as soon as they’re read, we could not—and do not—share them with advertisers or business partners.
“The main thing we did was to rewrite the Terms and Privacy Policy so that they’d read the way people actually talk. We always try to be upfront and clear with our community.”
As reported in B&T, a similar controversy happened to Spotify when its updated privacy policy said the music streaming company could access its users’ location, contacts, photos, videos and microphone.
