At Snap, we believe our Camera should be optimized for every Snapchatter. To do that, some of our products use info about your face, hands, and voice to make them work.

Lenses

We created Lenses to lower the barrier to self-expression and help friends feel more comfortable communicating with each other. With Lenses, you can apply fun and useful augmented reality effects on top of selfies and images. Our camera uses technology to locate certain features (like where your hands, eyes, and nose are) and uses that information to place the Lenses. 

Lenses aren’t only available in Snapchat. Check out Lenses in Story Studio and partners that use Camera Kit! 

Create Bitmoji with a Selfie

When you first create a Bitmoji avatar, you can take a selfie and we’ll help create an avatar that looks like you. We try to identify avatar attributes, such as hair color and style, that look like your picture. You can edit it at any time.

Cameos

To enable Cameos, you can take a selfie. Then, we use the info from your selfie to place you into fun Cameos scenes.  We believe it’s important to give users control over their information — anyone can make their Cameo selfie private by simply visiting their Settings.

Scan

When you use Scan, images from your Camera are sent to Snap so we can recognize what’s in the frame. We then recommend Lenses or provide other features to augment and complement your world.

Voice Products

Some of our products use audio data to understand what the speaker is saying. For example, some features transcribe the audio for you. Other features, like Voice Scan, allow you to search for Lenses with your voice, while voice commands in Lenses allow you to say “take a Snap” without touching a button.

Pixy

Pixy uses info about your face to fly and work. For example, in order for Pixy to follow you when it flies, Pixy needs to figure out where your face is in the camera frame.

AR Try-On

Some AR try-on products use technology to locate certain features (like where your hands, eyes, and nose are) and use that information to place virtual clothing and accessories.

Retention and Deletion

Face, hand, and voice data used to power these products is deleted within 3 years, but in most cases, it is deleted much sooner than that! For example, Lenses usually only need information about your face when the Lens is open and running on your phone. This means that when you close the Snapchat app, the information is deleted. Content you create and share will be preserved as long as you choose to save it. Pixy uses information about your face while it is flying; this information is not retained when the flight ends.

If you don’t agree to this and want to discontinue using Snapchat, you can delete your account. If you’ve already used these features and you choose to delete your account, the face, hand, and voice information associated with your account will be deleted. 

Please Note: Connected Lenses are Lenses that enable real-time interactions with your friends. As a result, some Connected Lenses share information about you with Snapchatters in the same session. When you share information with another Snapchatter, it may become associated with their account and you will not have the ability to delete information associated with someone else's account.

Please see our Privacy Center, Privacy Policy, and Privacy by Product pages to learn more about our privacy practices and products.