Features for synching with other apps is most aggressive move yet to capitalise on Facebook’s problems

Snapchat users will be able to use their account on the messaging service to log in to other apps, export their bitmoji and post information from elsewhere direct in the Snapchat app, as the company makes its most aggressive attempt yet to capitalise on Facebook’s woes.

The new features, collectively called “Snap Kit”, offer a set of tools that developers can incorporate into their own apps. The Creative Kit feature is about getting content into Snapchat: similar to an earlier integration with Uber, it lets apps create personalised filters, stickers and lenses that users can share on Snapchat. Food delivery service Postmates, for instance, will let users throw an ETA for their food onto a picture – to let their friends know to hurry up.

Similarly, the Bitmoji Kit lets users take the personalised caricatures that have become one of Snapchat’s core features and post them in other apps, with Tinder being one of the launch partners.

But Login Kit sees the social messaging firm move into new territory, providing the sort of internet infrastructure more commonly the domain of large data-driven firms such as Google and Facebook. Users who log in using their Snapchat account will only share their snapchat username with the service – and, optionally, their bitmoji too.

Everything else, such as biographical data, friend lists, and ad profiling, will stay with Snapchat, and if the login doesn’t get used for 90 days, the connection will be deleted entirely.

In an interview, the company didn’t refer explicitly to its competitor, but made sure to emphasise the difference between their approaches.

“Privacy and security have really been at the centre of everything we’ve done through out the lifetime of the company,” said Jacob Andreou, a Snap vice-president. “This isn’t even something that’s just the product of the recent changes in the climate.”

Ultimately, he said, the company was motivated to produce the features because “it didn’t look like there were a lot of great options for our users as they use other services.”

Katherine Tassi, the company’s deputy general counsel, added another coded swipe: Snap will directly vet any app that wants to sign up, requiring a human review and approval process. What’s more, she added: “We’re building privacy into the design of these developer toolkits from the start.” Snap, she said, takes the view that it isn’t enough to simply rely on privacy policies, when the best way to secure user data is to simply not share it – or even have it – in the first place.

The new features are just the latest volley in the ongoing war between Snapchat and Facebook. Recently, Snap has gone on the offensive, with its chief executive, Evan Spiegel, quipping last month, in relation to the Cambridge Analytica scandal: “We would really appreciate it if they copied our data protection practices also.”