The Student Room Group

Can the police track a deactivated Snapchat account?

I posted about this before but lost my post (I'm new to this🤣) but a girl has been giving me some hassle for a while and has been pretending to be me online, I know it wasn't me and the head of my year said he'll investigate it and try and get an answer in "2 days" he never mentioned the police but could they be made to become involved and find out who did it and trace the deactivated Snapchat account? But if the police did get involved could they track it?

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Reply 1
Original post by Anonymous
I posted about this before but lost my post (I'm new to this🤣) but a girl has been giving me some hassle for a while and has been pretending to be me online, I know it wasn't me and the head of my year said he'll investigate it and try and get an answer in "2 days" he never mentioned the police but could they be made to become involved and find out who did it and trace the deactivated Snapchat account? But if the police did get involved could they track it?

wanted to give some extra information but this person has been pretending to be me for a while and has even tried to break up someone's relationship by impersonating me. please give me a response I'm desperate to know
Reply 2
Original post by Anonymous
wanted to give some extra information but this person has been pretending to be me for a while and has even tried to break up someone's relationship by impersonating me. please give me a response I'm desperate to know

someone please reply :frown:
Reply 3
I beg someone replies I'm just getting very anxious
most likely but it's useful if you have evidence
Reply 5
Original post by holly6901
most likely but it's useful if you have evidence

oh okay thank youu
Considering the police have technology that can very easily recover ALL deleted files on your phone, im sure they have a way to track down profiles to the location of the sender.

This should definitely be taken quite seriously and I urge you to follow up with the school about it.

If the account becomes active or it starts back up, I would probably skip the school and file a report with the police since it is slander and can easily escalate to much worse things where they could be bullying others with your identity for example
Yes, Snapchat is required by law to hold information on an account for a certain period of time set out in their T&Cs.

This can be request as part of an investigation.
Reply 8
Original post by Anonymous
Considering the police have technology that can very easily recover ALL deleted files on your phone, im sure they have a way to track down profiles to the location of the sender.

This should definitely be taken quite seriously and I urge you to follow up with the school about it.

If the account becomes active or it starts back up, I would probably skip the school and file a report with the police since it is slander and can easily escalate to much worse things where they could be bullying others with your identity for example


Original post by DiddyDecAlt
Yes, Snapchat is required by law to hold information on an account for a certain period of time set out in their T&Cs.

This can be request as part of an investigation.

okay so it can be requested for an investigation but i feel like the police would be far too busy to waste their time tracking a deactivated account that's started some school drama, it just seems way too far fetched to me that a teacher would get the police involved with this just to find out who it was. it's just that im skeptical that the police will be involved with it but okay thank you very much !!
Reply 9
Original post by Anonymous
okay so it can be requested for an investigation but i feel like the police would be far too busy to waste their time tracking a deactivated account that's started some school drama, it just seems way too far fetched to me that a teacher would get the police involved with this just to find out who it was. it's just that im skeptical that the police will be involved with it but okay thank you very much !!



You're right, the police have far better things to do than tracking a deactivated troll account that didn't even break any laws...
Original post by Anonymous
okay so it can be requested for an investigation but i feel like the police would be far too busy to waste their time tracking a deactivated account that's started some school drama, it just seems way too far fetched to me that a teacher would get the police involved with this just to find out who it was. it's just that im skeptical that the police will be involved with it but okay thank you very much !!

They aren't going to waste time on school dramas.
Original post by ANM775
You're right, the police have far better things to do than tracking a deactivated troll account that didn't even break any laws...


Original post by DiddyDecAlt
They aren't going to waste time on school dramas.

okay thank you for the answers i do appreciate it !! i'll just gather some evidence of my own instead of relying on them tracking the deactivated acxount. (My school however does have a police officer Idk why she's there but maybe she's there for stuff similar to this maybe to do with drugs idk???)
Snapchat will certainly be collecting a lot of data on you. But even without that, it'd probably be easy to get an idea of who it is from how they registered the account. Furthermore, the usage and so on of that account can give away a lot on the person behind it.

Having said that, to get access to such information, the police would have to request it from Snapchat under the right conditions. Things like Terrorism, Immediate Threat to Life and various other sneaky government matters will have Snapchat hand over the data, no problemo.

Some kid in school pretending to be you and said some mean things that upset you. Absolutely not.
Original post by Shellshocker93
Snapchat will certainly be collecting a lot of data on you. But even without that, it'd probably be easy to get an idea of who it is from how they registered the account. Furthermore, the usage and so on of that account can give away a lot on the person behind it.

Having said that, to get access to such information, the police would have to request it from Snapchat under the right conditions. Things like Terrorism, Immediate Threat to Life and various other sneaky government matters will have Snapchat hand over the data, no problemo.

Some kid in school pretending to be you and said some mean things that upset you. Absolutely not.

Okay thank you so much the whole situation was just confusing for me honestly 😔
Original post by Anonymous
okay so it can be requested for an investigation but i feel like the police would be far too busy to waste their time tracking a deactivated account that's started some school drama, it just seems way too far fetched to me that a teacher would get the police involved with this just to find out who it was. it's just that im skeptical that the police will be involved with it but okay thank you very much !!


it can count as identity fraud or bullying
Original post by holly6901
it can count as identity fraud or bullying

It's not identify fraud. Identity fraud is when you replicate someone else identity and commit fraud, e.g. create a bank account, take out a loan, claim benefits or arrange official documentation.

This could be Identity 'Theft' but that's also a long stretch as they haven't really caused any harm.
Bullying isn't illegal, it's just not nice.

Police will not get involved and nor should they. This is kids.
Reply 16
Original post by Anonymous
I posted about this before but lost my post (I'm new to this🤣) but a girl has been giving me some hassle for a while and has been pretending to be me online, I know it wasn't me and the head of my year said he'll investigate it and try and get an answer in "2 days" he never mentioned the police but could they be made to become involved and find out who did it and trace the deactivated Snapchat account? But if the police did get involved could they track it?

They can but they probably wont
Reply 17
Original post by Shellshocker93
It's not identify fraud. Identity fraud is when you replicate someone else identity and commit fraud, e.g. create a bank account, take out a loan, claim benefits or arrange official documentation.

This could be Identity 'Theft' but that's also a long stretch as they haven't really caused any harm.
Bullying isn't illegal, it's just not nice.

Police will not get involved and nor should they. This is kids.

Also it counts as misrepresentation of character but chances are if they do anything it'll just be a warning
Original post by Shellshocker93
It's not identify fraud. Identity fraud is when you replicate someone else identity and commit fraud, e.g. create a bank account, take out a loan, claim benefits or arrange official documentation.

This could be Identity 'Theft' but that's also a long stretch as they haven't really caused any harm.
Bullying isn't illegal, it's just not nice.

Police will not get involved and nor should they. This is kids.

Okay thank you!! That's honestly sort of a relief to hear because I didn't intend on getting the police involved anyway. Thankfully I was just overthinking things as per usual🤣🤣
Original post by Kankle
Also it counts as misrepresentation of character but chances are if they do anything it'll just be a warning

Considering that we're in year 11 I doubt much will happen which honestly is good in my opinion, I'd rather not cause a scene and just enjoy this last year of school. Thank you for replying though!!

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