Snapchat allows teenagers to apply filters to amuse their friends, but there is also a risk of exposure to sexual content

Police are investigating three child sexual exploitation cases a day that involve Snapchat.

The photo-messaging app is loved by teenagers for its funny selfies and auto-deleting messages, but it has become a “haven” for predators using the platform to prey on the young.

Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel and wife Miranda Kerr JIM SMEAL/BEI/SHUTTERSTOCK

A Sunday Times investigation has laid bare for the first time the extent of child sexual exploitation on the app, uncovering thousands of reported cases that have involved Snapchat since 2014.

This includes paedophiles using the app to elicit indecent images from children and to groom teenagers, but also hundreds of cases in which under-18s have themselves spread child pornography through Snapchat.

Snapchat was founded in 2011 by Evan Spiegel with Reggie Brown and Bobby Murphy, his classmates at Stanford University, California.