Feeling in Control
My Snapchat contains all the usuals that have been consistent across these platforms: a list of my contacts, a log of everything posted, sent, received, and saved, every ad I've ever viewed and when I viewed it, approximations of my location, my age, my gender, my interests.
Snapchat data download. User Profile.
The download includes an FAQ page, where Snapchat notes what information has been left out this report, such as the log of my activity and engagements with ads. Where Twitter provides what ads I saw, when, why I saw it, and how long I looked at it, Snapchat only provides a list of advertisers I've interacted with.
Snapchat assures me that they typically retain the logs for 180 days, but "in some cases, we may need to retain these logs for much longer. For example, we may need to store some longs for the lifetime of the account."
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Despite this, like Facebook, Snapchat presents the data in a way that's intended to give the user a sense that they are in control, although they do this far less effectively. The language is filled with a ambiguities and disclaimers. In one section of the FAQ aptly subheaded, "How can I control my information?" Snapchat writes that they want users to "feel in control when it comes to how [they] collect process your data."
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Snapchat Has a Search History
Snapchat provides only a month's worth of searches from August 30, 2020 through September 26, 2020. These search terms are unique compared to other platforms because it's a log not of questions I searched the internet to answer or searches for people to add to my social network. The Snapchat queries are my searches for emoji's, stickers, and gifs to adorn snaps I sent to my friends or posted to my story.
search term
Snapchat sticker search results for the term "hello."
In the timeframe the search data is from, my snapchat memories (saved images from the same date over the years) were all from pre-pandemic days - friends, concerts, bars. Since the pandemic began, my friends and I have all been sending each other snap memories of happier times, and that nostalgia, longing to be go back or be somewhere else, and the anxieties of the present are all evident the some of the search entries.
Each entry is stamped with the date and the hour. Typos and fragments of words are logged as individual terms - the result of the search loading before I had finished typing. Many of these searches took place hours and days apart from each other. They are small pieces. Whatever context the individual searches existed in at the time they were logged is gone, but consolidated altogether as data points the fragments form a continuous narrative, a new context.
Ranking
In terms of information inferred about me, Snapchat has a list of topics similar to what Facebook provided called Ranking. However, the list only shares one commonality with Facebook, Cooking. Snapchat is another platform where recipe videos are widely watched via Snapchat's recommended stories feature. The other interest categories, however, range from oddly specific, like Naile_Art, to vague, as with Magazines.
Snapchat data download. Interest rankings.
Work and Home
Snapchat is an app that always has my location. From that data, Snapchat has approximated the longitude and latitude of where I live and where I work within an error range of roughly 17 meters.
Snapchat location data. Work is unsurprisingly blank since I've been working from home since March. Snapchat hasn't updated it's collection and inference methods for the age of home offices.
As Snapchat explains on the Locations page of my data download, they make these guesses about my location, so my Bitmoji, an avatar you can create for yourself in the app, can reflect my activities. For example, when I'm at the library, my Bitmoji will appear on the Snapchat map sitting at a desk with a stack of books beside her.
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What's interesting about how Snapchat has presented why and how they use location data is that they make the trade-off very clear. Denying Snapchat access to my location data means giving up some of the app's services. In the digital, data-driven space, we are always choosing between convenience and privacy. On one hand, I like that if I want to post a snapchat story, I need only swipe through a few options to find a nicely designed sticker announcing my location. On the other hand, the idea that Snapchat is always monitoring my location and making approximations of where I live and work is unsettling.
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Even more unsettling to me is their disclaimer about the location services: "Even without location permissions, Snapchat can sometimes guess your approximate location based on your IP address." Really, we don't get a choice as users of Snapchat. Whether we actively participate or not, Snapchat tracks location data either way. We just get to decide if we want to see it ourselves in the form of cute graphics while they meet their "important business needs." We always stand to lose more in the tradeoff than Snapchat does. They are always in a position to gain.
