Snapchat may start spying on objects in your camera

Snapchat has proven to be a great resource for people to connect all over the world through the power of their smartphone.

However, a sizeable user base also brings with it a sizeable opportunity for advertising revenue, and that’s exactly what the company appears to be promoting – just maybe not in the way you’d expect.

The company has filed a patent for a system using object recognition to serve users sponsored filters. The technology outlined by the company would identify items in pictures, then offer users image overlays from related brands. It’s essentially tailored advertising on a pretty unnecessary in-depth scale.

Despite the application including details about the object-spying described above, its primary purpose is to offer a more general system of recognition-based photo filters.

In an example of the non-advertised recognition process, Snapchat shows how a picture of the Empire State Building would be identified.  And when the user swiped through their filters, they could be greeted with an overlay of King Kong swatting planes away at the peak.

While this sounds like a fun use of the technology, seeing a Starbucks ad pop up every time you just want to deflect the camera away from your face onto your morning beverage could be a hassle.

As always, though, a patent doesn’t necessarily mean this will ever come to fruition. Until we know for sure, you’ll just have to remain content with the location-tracking from the app.

Source: DigitalSpy