My brother is an attorney in Illinois, and a post he shared yesterday about schools forcing students to divulge their social media passwords in the event of a student policy infraction got me thinking. Facebook, Twitter or Ask.FM accounts make it pretty easy for investigators to find evidence of cyber bullying or another crime, but what about Snapchat?
If you’re unfamiliar with Snapchat, it’s an app available in the app store that allows users to send pictures and messages to one another. Similar to the messages Inspector Gadget received from Chief Quimby, the picture messages sent through Snapchat self-destruct after the recipient views the message. Once a picture has been viewed, it can never be viewed again, unless of course the sender also added the photo to their “story,” which makes it available for 24 hours from the moment it was uploaded by the sender. As you can see, collecting evidence through Snapchat can prove problematic, but it’s not impossible.
The Snapchat Law Enforcement Guide
Possibly sensing some legal backlash over their evidence-destroying app, Snapchat has published a Law Enforcement Guide to direct inquiring minds to the right channel to obtain information. Snapchat claims they are”committed to assisting law enforcement investigations as the law requires,” and they list three circumstances under which they’ve provide information to authorities:
- Subpoenas
- Court Orders
- Search Warrants
Now you may think that Snapchat stores a content-copy of every snap, even after it disappears from the recipient’s phone, but that’s not true. Snapchat’s doesn’t want users to fear that an internal leak or a hacker could break into the server and release private photos, so they don’t keep any content-copies. Snapchat does however keep meta-data records about any sent snaps, such as time sent, who it was sent to and when it was opened.
That said, there are still two potential avenues authorities can use through Snapchat to obtain the information they are looking for. First is through Snapchat’s “Chat” function. Similar to text messages, users can send text-based messages to one another, and these records don’t disappear. Any information found in these conversations can be used in the court of law.
The other way authorities can track down a certain snap is if one recipient has yet to open a snapchat. With snapchats, the content-copy message deletes itself from Snapchat’s server after all recipients have viewed the message, meaning if even one recipient hasn’t opened the message, authorities can track down the full message by obtaining a search warrant and sending a request to Snapchat. Snapchat holds content-copies of messages for 30 days from the moment they are sent so long as one recipient hasn’t opened the message.
Additionally, in the event of an emergency such as a serious threat to someone’s life, authorities can obtain information from Snapchat by sending a request signed by a sworn law enforcement agent from a department email address. Snapchat even provides templates for officers to use to expedite the process. For more information on Snapchat’s Law Enforcement Policy, click here.
