Secret to block posts naming ‘private individuals’ after closing 42 privacy holes this year

Anonymous sharing app Secret is getting a raft of updates designed to make sharing secrets on the platform easier as well as more private following the news that it had 42 security holes that could potentially have disclosed user’s real identities.

Announced today, the incoming update (due today for Android users and next week for iOS devices) outright blocks “posts containing names of private individuals whenever possible”.

The company says that the best Secrets shared on the network rarely have names in them, so it makes sense to block them in order to encourage more interesting posts. What isn’t clear is whether it can tell the difference between ‘normal’ people and celebrities – we’ve dropped Secret a line to clarify this point.

Alongside the blocking of real names, there are also a few other new features, like integration of Flickr’s photo search, but it comes at a cost: you can’t include photos from your Camera Roll any more (which could be to discourage the use of personally identifiable photos), although you can take new ones on the spot and use those.

Rounding off the updates is the introduction of polls, which again makes sense, given that many Secrets shared across the network involve some sort of dilemma or decision. At the moment, this is limited to a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, but it could obviously be expanded upon in the future.

➤ Image search, Questions and Safety [Secret | Medium]