The Latest Privacy Concern Is Snapchat’s New Feature Called Snap Map

With the increase in child abduction and kidnapping, the new snap map may not be a laudable project after all. It’s okay to have fun and share details with friends and loved ones and make yourself trackable with your devise but hey! Just as technology is seeking means to outweigh a previous app or something similar, so are other forms of atrocities. Considering the increasing rate of child abduction, the new snap app may be a danger if abused.

From the time of invention, series of features have been added, leading to the app’s popularity: video snaps, direct messaging, geofilters, lens feature, snap cash, memories and geo stickers, world stickers and most recently, snap map. Snapchat recently released the update saying: “we’ve built a new way to explore the world! See what’s happening, find your friends, and get inspired to go on an adventure”.

Studies have revealed that due to its temporal nature of multimedia images, this app encourages sexting among teenagers and youths. The app as at May recorded 116 million daily active users of which a large majority are teenagers. The app which is primarily used for creating multimedia messages referred to as “snaps” is enjoyed by many of its users because of the “fun aspect”. In fact, the success of this app is due to this aspect, other than security.

The new snap map allows users to share their location, with their friends, making them trackable on the map. As reported by BBC news, “Dustin Fitch, a policeman provided an example and issued a warning about the ills of sharing ones location to total strangers. However, the settings are adjustable. The “ghost mode” option is preferable as it protects your privacy.

With the new snap map, you can detect where your friends are and what they are up to if they have shared it as a story.  However, it is totally optional to share your location with your friends. You can decide to keep it to yourself with ghost mode.

With the new snap map, you can actually choose which friends you want to share your location with and vice versa. The feature doesn’t work unless the location settings is turned on. However, the worry stems from the fact that the success of this app reckons with the fun it provides. Therefore, turning off the location setting may not be embraced by many of the users.