The beauty of Snapchat is that you never have to worry about anyone using your goofy selfies and barfing rainbows video clips against you in the future. At least, that's what the app was intended to do. Except every smartphone has the ability to screenshot, which means there is a small chance that someone can save your Snaps.
Sadly, in an age where people share seriously private pics (sometimes of a sexual nature) with their significant others on Snapchat, often those pictures that they hoped would go away after 10 seconds are screenshotted. And if the user falls out with the person they shared it with, that screenshot could be used against them in the future. Which is why screenshotting selfies could result in some serious legal ramifications, at least in the U.K.
Member of British parliament, Jim Shannon, asked the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Edward Vaizey, if he was taking steps to prevent Snapchat images from being made public without the consent of the image's owner. In response, Vaizey made it clear that sharing someone's snaps without permission is a serious matter under U.K. law.
"Under UK copyright law, it would be unlawful for a Snapchat user to copy an image and make it available to the public without the consent of the image owner," Vaizey said in his written response . "The image owner would be able to sue anyone who does this for copyright infringement."
He went on to explain that if the images shared are of a sexual nature, the person sharing them could face jail time. "The disclosure of private sexual photographs or films without the consent of an individual who appears in them and with intent to cause that individual distress is an offense under Section 33 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015. Those convicted could face a maximum sentence of two years in prison," he added. It should also be noted that these laws apply to media posted on any social media platform, not just Snapchat.
Vaizey stressed that Snapchat advises its users to "avoid sending messages which they would not want to be saved or shared " as a preventative measure because of users' ability to screenshot.
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