Once again a company has taken steps to clarify its privacy policy after recent changes caused confusion and worry for its customers. Over the weekend, Snapchat reassured users that their information and photos are private, and always will be. 

In a blog post Sunday, the photo-sharing app attempted to put an end to users’ concerns that a newly updated privacy policy gave the company the ability to store and share users photos.

“First off, we want to be crystal clear: The Snaps and Chats you send your friends remain as private today as they were before the update,” the company said.

Snapchat says that nothing has changed regarding the privacy of users photos; they will continue to be “automatically deleted from our servers once we detect that they have been viewed or have expired.”

“But the important point is that Snapchat is not—and never has been—stockpiling your private Snaps or Chats,” the blog post continued. “And because we continue to delete them from our servers as soon as they’re read, we could not—and do not—share them with advertisers or business partners.”

The company does admit that the privacy policy gives it broad license to use the content users create in order to share snaps submitted to Live Stories. However, consumers can restrict their personal privacy settings within the app so not to share these snaps.

To ensure personal communications continue to remain truly personal, users should: open the Snapchat app, click on the snap ghost, tap the settings wheel and review who can send them snaps and view their stories.

[via CNET]

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