Snapchat, the mobile app that allows you to send videos and pictures to your friends, before self destructing after 10 seconds, currently has over 100 million daily active users and is valued at around $10 billion.
But when it comes to Snapchat’s privacy laws, the lines have remained somewhat blurry, with users notoriously screenshotting images on their phones as a way of saving a Snapchat before it disappears, because this way of permanently retaining information is OK, right? Heads up, it's not. It's really not.
The UK's culture minister Ed Vaizey has just confirmed that anyone who shares Snapchat screenshots without the maker’s consent could be sued under British copyright law in a step to ease concern over the image rights and privacy of Snapchat users.
‘Under UK copyright law, it would be unlawful for a Snapchat user to copy an image and make it available to the public without the consent of the image owner,’ the minister outlined.
‘The image owner would be able to sue anyone who does this for copyright infringement.
‘Snapchat photos are automatically deleted after 10 seconds. The Snapchat privacy policy states that if Snapchat is able to detect that a recipient has taken a screenshot of an image, they will try to inform the original poster.
‘However, Snapchat advises users to avoid sending messages which they would not want to be saved or shared.’
Vaizey also warned that anyone who shared images of a particularly sexual nature without consent could face an additional prison sentence of up to two years.