Key Features
Snap Map: Where the World Unfolds
One of Snapchat's standout features is the Snap Map, an interactive map that allows users to share their location and see where their friends are in real-time. This feature enables friends to connect in a way that feels personal and spontaneous. Here's how it works:
Location Sharing: Users can opt to share their location with friends, whether it's their current whereabouts or a special location they're visiting.
Bitmoji Avatars: Each user's Bitmoji (personalized cartoon avatar) is displayed on the map. This adds an engaging element to location sharing, making it easier to spot your friends.
Snap Explorer: This feature also includes a Snap Explorer where you can watch public Snaps from events, landmarks, and hotspots around the world. It's a virtual journey that lets you explore different places, cultures, and events as they happen.
Snap Map is not just about finding friends; it's about creating shared experiences and discovering new aspects of the world in real-time. While some may be concerned about privacy, Snapchat allows users to choose exactly who can see their location, and they can even enter "Ghost Mode" to disappear from the map when they prefer.
Next time you have a protest or some major event taking place in your city check out snap maps and you will be surprised how much intelligence you can gather.
Next time you have a protest or some major event taking place in your city check out snap maps and you will be surprised how much intelligence you can gather.
Disappearing Messages: Sharing Without a Trace
Snapchat is renowned for introducing the concept of disappearing messages, a feature that has since been adopted by many other platforms. With this feature, you can send photos, videos, and text messages that vanish after being viewed by the recipient. This feature offers several advantages:
Privacy: Users can share personal and candid moments without worrying about their content
being permanently stored or shared without consent.
being permanently stored or shared without consent.
Spontaneity: The ephemeral nature of Snapchat encourages more candid and spontaneous communication. It's all about living in the moment.
Expressive Tools: Snapchat's disappearing messages allow you to add fun stickers, filters, and doodles to your content, making every message a creative expression.
The sense of transience offered by Snapchat's disappearing messages sets it apart from other messaging apps, emphasizing the moment over the memory.
"For My Eyes Only": Secure and Private Sharing
This feature allows users to designate certain photos and videos as private, safeguarding them from unintended viewers. Here's how it works:
Secure Gallery: The "For My Eyes Only" folder acts as a secret gallery, protected by a passcode (4 digit) or biometric authentication. It's a safe space for intimate content that you want to keep confidential.
Control: Users have complete control over what they share in this folder, ensuring their most private moments remain that way.
Peace of Mind: Knowing that your private content is secure and inaccessible to others provides peace of mind for Snapchat users.
This feature adds a layer of security and privacy to the platform, allowing users to share personal and sensitive content confidently.
What does this mean for us?
Parole/ Probation
Searching the electronic devices of those on active supervision is a must. Especially convicted sex offenders. If your offenders have snapchat on their devices, checking the "My Eyes Only" portion of their account is important. Especially knowing that it was designed with the intent of hiding specific content.
Searching
It is important to understand that Snapchat not only can be accessed via a mobile application (Android/ iOS), but Snapchat has recently added web browser support as well, this means that a snapchat account can be accessed by any web browser from video game systems, to computers and even virtual reality headsets. Because of this we cannot just limit ourselves to mobile devices when investigating Snapchat cybertips or when working undercover chat operations.
Preserving Evidence
There are a number of different ways you can preserve evidence from snapchat. Because Snapchat can be accessed from a web browser you can use a tool like "SingleFile" from the chrome web store to preserve chat messages from Snapchat via a web browser (Keep in mind it wont preserve videos). Additionally tools such as Magnet's Graykey and Axiom will be able to grab that evidence via the account tokens. Datapilot is another option as it has the possibility of screenshotting and recording
Search Warrants
Search Warrants authored to Snapchat can provide you with key evidence including chat history, locations, date and IP of creation, and verified email addresses. While the search warrant returns are relatively easy to navigate on their own, there are tools like ".Social" which is free on NDCAC (check out our free investigator tools) and Magnet's Axiom that can parse these returns for you.