Mired in controversies since the last few weeks, Snapchat has finally decided to take a step to improving its privacy policy. The photo messaging application has stated that it would be notifying users if a third-party application has saved their photo on another phone. This comes in the wake of a major security breach in one of the third-party application.
The security breach had led to the leaking of thousands of photos, a lot of which contained sensitive material. The application shot to fame for its claims that it deleted photos from its own servers as soon as they have been viewed by the recipient. This feature made the application very popular amongst the youth, who often used it to share intimate pictures with each other.
The new feature was introduced when on Tuesday, November 12, 2014. Last month, a third-party application – Snapsaved.com – was hacked into and several pictures were leaked online. This lead to a public outrage and at the time, Snapchat had issued a statement that its servers were not breached, which meant it was not the source of the leak.
The company has said that third-party developers had used their Application Programming Interface (API) to build applications around it. These applications then ask for the users’ Snapchat login credentials, which is where the problem arises. People give a third-party application access to their account, which can be misused.
The firm said it was in the process of tightening its security and changing its privacy policy.
