FTC to Approves Charges Against Snapchat Over User Privacy

After revelations regarding the Snapchat’s failure to protect user privacy, the US Federal Trade Commission has finalised charges against the company. On 31st December, the FTC released the list of charges to be filed against Snapchat.

In the advisory released by the FTC, the US governmental department accuses Snapchat of “[deceiving] consumers with promises about the disappearing nature of messages sent through the service,” and that “Snapchat also deceived consumers over the amount of personal data it collected and the security measures taken to protect that data from misuse and unauthorized disclosure.”

Snapchat is designed to send perishable photo messages that are deleted after viewing. However, it was discovered last year that not only does Snapchat archive sent messages, but that third-party apps are able to recover perished messages.

Snapchat suffered another privacy breach last year when 4.6 million account usernames, passwords, and associated phone numbers were leaked online.

Source: ZDNet