Lindsey Graham | Opinion Co-Editor
Apps are constantly being updated and including more innovative options. The latest technology was announced for Snapchat, called Snapcash. Users can now transfer money to their Snapchat friends through the chat feature. While the idea certainly is innovative, the uses for this option are questionable.
What uses would there be to send money to friends through Snapchat? I could see uses for pitching in with gas money or a dinner bill, but is that really how we think our generation would utilize the feature? What will probably happen is girls and guys would now start paying for and selling their inappropriate pictures because that is how others perceive Snapchat is used.
Although the idea sounds convenient to be able to pay back a friend when you’re short of cash, I question the security of the app. While the service is powered by Square, it seems just too easy to type in your card number and send money. Remember when Snapchat was hacked and thousands of pictures were leaked online? Imagine how much worse the damage would be if the card information was stolen and posted.
With other peer-to-peer payment systems existing, such as Google Wallet, I would trust Snapchat the least. There is something unsettling about trusting social media networks with financial information. Once a user is logged in, they do not have to re-enter their password every time they open the app. If a user does not have a password-protected phone, then anyone could open Snapchat and send money to others.
On the other hand, it is true that information leaks can happen anywhere your financial information is used, just recall Target’s data leak last year in 2013. But then think about how much security corporations use to protect customer information. I would doubt that an app would have the same level of protection as a billion dollar corporation.
An issue that technology users have is the willingness to trust too much. We are willing to enter our personal and financial information on any website without thinking twice. Snapcash is making it too easy to make transactions. What if somebody accidentally mistyped the amount of money they wanted to send, $15.00, to $1,500? You could politely ask the other person to send back the leftover $1,485, but there’s no way to force them to.
Lets just stick to sending pictures and text that disappear in 10 seconds and don’t add money to the mix. Is it really worth the risk of a data leak to be too lazy to walk to the ATM?
