Photo Messaging app “Snapchat” shares users’ images with U.S Law Enforcement

Snapchat users’ images are being shared with U.S Law Enforcement and hope users better know about this, if you are a Snapchat user and missed its blog post on October 14, so you should give some time to read this article: It is admitted in blog-post by Spanchat itself that it was, and it will share images with U.S Law Enforcement: .....

Since May 2013, about a dozen of the search warrants we've received have resulted in us producing unopened snaps to law enforcement. That's out of 350 million snaps sent every day. 

How Snapchat works? 

Using the Snapchat app—users can take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to a controlled list of recipients, the sent items known as “Snaps”, sender also have to choose the time (from 1-10 seconds) for how long recipients can view their Snaps. 

Behind the Curtains?

Well, the time a user choose “how long recipients can view their Snaps” is maximum up-to 10 seconds and it seems impossible that images could be intercepted by someone. But it is, however, possible—Snapchat’s head of trust and safety, Micah Schaffer, explained in the blog-post that forensic examination of a handset that has received a snap is not the only means by which investigators could gain access to photos. Schaffer stated, unopened snaps are disclosed in some instances:

For example, there are times when we, like other electronic communication service providers, are permitted and sometimes compelled by law to access and disclose information. For example if we receive a search warrant from law enforcement for the contents of snaps and those snaps are still on our servers, a federal law called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) obliges us to produce the snaps to the requesting law enforcement agency.

It is also possible to hold some snaps from a long period of time, but this can be done in that issue where Law Enforcement considering whether or not to make a formal request to access the images via the search warrant procedure. At last, you have to think twice before sending a snap that contains something confidential.