Snapchat May Risk Connecting Apps, Despite Facebook Uproar

chat soon may have a Connected Apps feature that is similar to the functionality at the heart of the Cambridge Analytica brouhaha, which has Facebook writhing under congressional scrutiny and consumer backlash.

The latest beta features a new Connected Apps tab within the setting page, Mashable reported earlier this week.

The page displays the following text: "These apps are connected to your Snapchat account. Choose an app to control what it has access to."

Snapchat already allows Bitmoji and Shazam apps to connect directly to users' Snapchat accounts.

It's not clear whether Snapchat actually plans to implement the feature, given the heat Facebook has drawn. Further, it's not clear how similar it might be to Facebook's Connected Apps API.

How Facebook Got in Trouble

The Cambridge Analytica controversy sprang from the use of an old version of Facebook's Connected Apps API, which had a "friends permission" feature that let third-party developers collect users' data without their consent or knowledge.

Through a personality test developed by Cambridge University academic Aleksandr Kogan, Cambridge Analytica managed to obtain data on 50 million Facebook members without their knowledge or consent.

Although the app was installed by just 270,000 users, the "friends permission" feature allowed access to the data of tens of millions of their friends.