Snapchat messaging service on Thursday set out to spread its reach, and panache, to other smartphone apps with a software kit that promised to share little data about users. Parent company Snap said people will be able to use Snapchat credentials to sign into apps the way they might do using Facebook or Google credentials, while strictly limiting access to personal data or activity tracking. The software kit will also allow free Snapchat features such as filters, stories or "Bitmojis" to appear in other applications, according to the California-based firm. The kit, aimed at making Snapchat more ubiquitous in the world of smartphone apps, was built with privacy as a priority, Snap vice president of product Jacob Andreou told AFP. "We did not want to lower privacy expectations," Andreou said. Meanwhile, a survey said on Thursday that many people are switching from Facebook to closed forums like WhatsApp to discuss daily news because of worries about privacy, fake stories and toxic debates. The latest Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that news consumption via Facebook is falling, particularly among the young, who prefer WhatsApp, Instagram and Snapchat. "People are ... getting a little bit bored with Facebook," Nic Newman, lead author of the seventh annual report told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Facebook remains the most popular social network for news, with 36 percent using it in the last week. But it has lost ground to other apps, especially WhatsApp, which has tripled in popularity as a source of news in four years to 15 percent.