Privacy Policy
Last Modified: October 28, 2015
Snapchat is a fast and fun way to share experiences with your friends and the world around you. You can send a photo or video Snap to friends, chronicle your day through My Story, touch base using Chat, immerse yourself in global events through Live, and enjoy handcrafted stories from the world’s top publishers on Discover.
When you use these services—and any others we roll out—you’ll inevitably share some information with us. We get that that can affect your privacy. So we want to be upfront about the information we collect, how we use it, whom we share it with, and the choices we give you to control, access, and update your information.
That’s why we’ve written this privacy policy. And it’s why we’ve tried to write it in a way that’s blissfully free of the legalese that often clouds these documents. Of course, if you still have questions about anything in our privacy policy, just ping us.
Information We Collect
There are three basic ways we collect information:
Information you choose to give us.
Information we get automatically when you use our services.
Information we get from third parties.
Here’s a little more detail on each of these categories.
Information You Choose to Give Us
When you interact with our services, we collect the information that you choose to share with us. For example, most of our services require you to set up a basic Snapchat account, so we need to collect a few important details about you: a unique username you’d like to go by, a password, an email address, a phone number, and your date of birth. To make it easier for others to find you, we may also ask you to provide us with some additional information that will be publicly visible on our services, such as profile pictures, a name, or other useful identifying information. Other services, such as commerce products, may also require you to provide us with a debit or credit card number and its associated account information. And, of course, when you contact Snapchat Support or communicate with us in any other way, we’ll collect whatever information you volunteer.
Information We Get Automatically When You Use Our Services
When you use our services, we collect information about which of those services you’ve used and how you’ve used them. We might know, for instance, that you watched a particular Live Story, saw a specific ad for a certain period of time, and sent a few Snaps to friends. Here’s a fuller explanation of the types of information we collect when you use our services:
Usage Information. We collect information about your activity through our services. For example, we may collect information about:
how you interact with the services, such as which filters you apply to Snaps or which channels you watch on Discover.
how you communicate with other Snapchatters, such as the time, date, sender, recipient of a message, the number of messages you exchange with your friends, which friends you exchange messages with the most, and your interactions with messages (such as when you open a message or capture a screenshot).
Content Information. We collect the content you provide and information about that content, such as if the recipient has viewed the content, replayed the content, and the metadata that is provided with the content.
Device Information.
We collect device-specific information, such as the hardware model, operating system version, unique device identifiers, browser type, language, wireless network, and mobile network information (including the mobile phone number).
We also collect device information that will help us diagnose and troubleshoot problems in the (hopefully rare) event you experience any crash or other problem while using our services.
Device Phonebook. Because Snapchat is all about communicating with friends, we may—with your consent—collect information from your device’s phonebook.
Camera and Photos. Many of our services require us to collect images and other information from your device’s camera and photos. We’ll never access the camera or photos unless you give us your consent to do so.
Location Information. When you use our services we may collect information about your location. With your consent, we may also collect information about your precise location using methods that include GPS, wireless networks, cell towers, Wi-Fi access points, and other sensors, such as gyroscopes, accelerometers, and compasses.
Information Collected by Cookies and Similar Technologies. Like most online services and mobile applications, we may use cookies and other technologies, such as web beacons, web storage, and unique device identifiers, to collect information about your activity, browser, and device. We may also use these technologies to collect information when you interact with services we offer through one of our partners, such as commerce features. Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can usually remove or reject browser