Snapchat messaging service on Thursday set out to spread its reach, and panache, to other smartphone apps with a software kit that promised to share little data about users.
People will be able to use Snapchat credentials to sign into apps the way they might do using Facebook or Google credentials, while strictly limiting access to personal data or activity tracking, parent company Snap Inc said.
The software kit would also allow free Snapchat features, such as filters, stories or “Bitmojis” to appear in other applications, the California-based firm said.
The kit, aimed at making Snapchat more ubiquitous in the world of smartphone apps, was built with privacy as a priority, Snap vice president of product Jacob Andreou said.
“We did not want to lower privacy expectations,” Andreou said.
The move comes as Facebook Inc deals with aftershocks of a data privacy scandal that rocked the leading online social network.
Snapchat sign-ins to other apps are to use nicknames and “Bitmoji” avatars instead of personal data from profiles, the company said.
Snap also vowed to carefully scrutinize what applications do with the new software tools.
Snap deputy general counsel Katherine Tassi said that the service learned from an incident nearly four years ago when a huge trove of evidently intercepted Snapchat images and videos were exposed online.
In what was referred to in late 2014 as “The Snappening,” people who used a third-party program instead of the official Snapchat application had copies of supposedly transient missives squirreled away by hackers who then posted them online.
Snap wanted to “make sure that we build security and privacy into the design” when creating the kit for outside developers, Tassi said.
Snap has been modifying the app, sometimes to the chagrin of users, in the name of broadening the appeal of the youth-oriented service.
“We are now focused on optimizing the redesign based on our ongoing experimentation and learning,” Snap cofounder and chief executive Evan Spiegel said during an earnings call with analysts last month.
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