Snap Inc. announces GDPR compliance, adherence to privacy by design principles

U.S.-based social networking company Snap has reported in a recent blog post that it’s compliant with the E.U.’s General Data Protection Regulation principles (GDPR).

These principles look to uphold four standards: data minimization, short retention periods, anonymization and security.

The GDPR was enacted in 2016 and will become an enforceable law in the EU starting on May 25th.

While Snapchat doesn’t have to abide by these laws because it’s a U.S.-based company, if it wants to be able to operate in the E.U., it will need to adhere to the requirements of the GDPR.

Snap said that it has a team of privacy lawyers and engineers that work closely with the teams that are designing new features, in order to comply with the GDPR.

This privacy team looks at issues that relate to how Snapchatters view, access and exercise rights to their data; how long the company retains user data; how to minimize the amount of data that is collected and how to ensure the data isn’t collected for anything other than its intended purpose.

“When we do collect information, we try to be thoughtful about the kind of data we use. For example, we don’t collect information about your ethnicity, sexuality, or political allegiance,” reads an excerpt from the same Snap blog post.

The also company explained that it uses location data for location-based filters, not for advertising purposes.

That being said, it’s a little on the nose for Snap to be highlighting some of the features that require location data, while the app’s ‘Snap Map’ feature that lets users see where their friends are on a map. Of course this feature can be disabled, but Snap Map seems like a feature that’s the opposite of privacy-minded.

Snap has also recently rewritten the terms in its Privacy Centre to make it easier for users to read and understand the terms of the app.

Source: Snap, Inc