Snapchat Update 2014: What You Didn't Know About Big Change

Snapchat's latest update brought tons of new features including self-deleting SMS messaging, video chatting and more! The popular update is being praised by many tech blogs, sites and fans as brilliant and infact it is but there is an unexpected cost that has nothing to do with Snapchat's added functionality.

Those users who want to utilize Snapchat's filters to add some color or variety to their photos will have to turn on the application's Location Services to do so.

The apps previous version split the filters feature into two different categories: the location-based Smart Filters and Visual filters. The first required location data to share information like temperature, speed or time of day. While Visual Filters affect saturation and color, similar to an Instagram filter but did not need Location Services turned on. Users could opt to turn on one category of filter over the other (or both if they wanted), meaning those who were concerned about sharing their location data could still use the Visual Filters.

However, this new Snapchat version lumps all filter versions together which requires users Location Services to be turned on before you can use them.

A Snapchat spokesperson spoke with Daily Dot assuring that the use of Location Services data is just for the fun filters, saying, "We rely on location services to provide useful filters, such as speed and weather. We don't keep locational data, and we don't associate it with any usernames.”

While the statement is reassuring there is still those of us feeling a bit uneasy afterthe New Year's Eve data leak, in which an anonymous website revealed over four million Snapchat usernames and phone numbers.

There is a simple solution. If you feel uneasy about sharing toggling on your location services for the Snapchat app just leave it off and stick to the filterless photos.