“When you give your login credentials to a third-party application, you're allowing a developer, and possibly a criminal, to access your account information and send information,” the company said in a blog post.
In a company blog post, Snapchat cautioned its users against installing third-party developer apps, after over 200,000 Snapchat photos leaked this weekend due to a breach of the third-party app Snapsaved.
While Snapsaved quickly took responsibility, Snapchat warned its users
that the company has not "provided a public API to developers" and
"prohibit[s] access to the private API we use to provide our service,"
in order to protect user data and log-in information. The company went
so far as to remind users that some seemingly attractive third-party
apps might even be traps set up by criminals to harvest personal data
and private data.
The company says it will continue to encourage
Apple and Google to prune third-party apps that access the Snapchat API.
And while the company refused to share any information, the post seems
to hint at the possibility of a future public Snapchat API.
"Don't get us wrong - we're excited by the interest in developing for
the Snapchat platform - but we're going to take our time to get it
right," the post reads. "Until then, that means any application that
isn't ours but claims to offer Snapchat services violates our Terms of
Use and can't be trusted."