Snapchats Newest Feature - An Impressive Innovation or a Huge Privacy Threat?

Earlier this week, Snapchat introduced a new feature called SnapMap. This feature gives you the option to share your location with all your Snap friends or only a select few. If you decide to share your location, then an emoji representing you will appear on the SnapMap, pinpointing your exact location to your friends within the Snapchat app.

Details

• If you are choosing to share your location on the Map, your location is updated every time the Snapchat app is opened
• If a Snapchatter chooses to share their location with all of their friends on Snapchat, the app will remind them of that choice periodically to make sure they are still comfortable with this.
• Only mutual friends can see each other on the Map.
• Snapchat will delete precise location data after a short period of time.
• A friend’s location will remain on the Map for up to 8 hours if they do not open the app again, causing their location to update. If more than 8 hours has passed and a Snapchatter has not opened the app, their location will disappear from the Map entirely.

Some are praising the new feature, while others are deeming it "dangerous" and "a threat to privacy nationwide."

In my opinion, this is an awesome, innovative update by the team at Snapchat. It is very similar to Apple's "Find My Friends," yet it is 100x cooler and more appealing to Millennials and the younger generations. Sure, I see the issues that arise around privacy, especially when you consider younger children/teenagers. But, COME ON, you can easily eradicate this entire issue by allowing only your closest friends to view your location.

Personally, I only share my location with about five of my friends. But either way, the friends I have on Snapchat are not "randoms" so I really wouldn't be concerned if I allowed every contact to follow me as well.

What do you think?