Snapchat was founded on privacy, but with concerns fueled by the NSA’s overreaching power, it’s one of many tech companies being looked over with a magnifying glass.
Today, Head of Trust Safety Micah Schaffer addressed some concerns in a new blog post titled “Who Can View My Snaps and Stories.”
According to the post, Snapchat does comply with legitimate search warrants requesting access to “Snaps” or posts on its servers.
However, once a post is viewed by its recipient, it is no longer accessible as it has been deleted.
Schaffer says that since May 2013, only about a dozen search warrants were able to produce unopened Snaps.
Sometimes when law enforcement agencies are in the process of issuing a search warrant, Snapchat is also asked to “preserve” or save Snaps for a certain length of time.
This requires a special tool, and one that only Schaffer and the company’s Co-Founder/CTO Bobby Murphy have access to.
On October 3, Snapchat introduced Stories, a new way of sharing posts that are available for 24 hours, and can be viewed more than once.
While Stories “are subject to the same legal requirements for access and disclosure” as Snaps, they are deleted from Snapchat servers after 24 hours.
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