Following last month's leak of 13gb worth of private Snapchat photos and videos, the vanishing message service has announced a new policy whereby it will automatically detect third-party apps, and advise users to disconnect them, reports The Next Web.
The leak resulted in some 200,000 photos and videos being made public thanks to the hack of a third party site, Snapsaved. There was no breach of the official site itself.
As such, Snapchat has announced that it will be warning all users that they should disconnect any third-party apps it detects, and consider changing their username and password. "We’ve enjoyed some of the ways that developers have tried to make Snapchat better. Unfortunately, some developers build services that trick Snapchatters and compromise their accounts," a spokesperson said on Snapchat's official Tumblr.
"We want to prevent that from happening in our community. Starting today, we will notify Snapchatters when we have detected that they may be using third-party apps and we’ll ask those Snapchatters to change their password and stop using unauthorized apps," the spokesperson added.
Tech Crunch reports that the company is working on an official API, the lack of which to date they argue "is something that puts users' privacy at risk." In the short term however, they believe that this official recommendation against third-party apps may cause their popularity to 'wither'.
Snapchat has stated that it expects most users to be unaffected by this update, suggesting that third party applications remain a minority part of the service for most users - at least in light of the recent leak. The company has promised "some incredible new stuff" will be following for the app soon, however.
