Snapchat filters cost the Government £70,000 in one year

The filters were used to send messages to people reminding them not to drive while on drugs

A man uses Snapchat on an iPhone (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

The Government spent £70,000 on Snapchat filters in one year.

The Department of Transport spent the money on adding pictures that people could opt to cover their face with before sending them. They usually add a fun doodle, like a hat or mask - but in the case of the Government they included a message reading: “Drive High? The roadside swab will catch you”.

The filter included a picture of that same swab, which works like a breathalyser to check whether people have taken drugs before getting behind the wheel.

The messages were sent as part of the Think! driving campaign in March, according to BuzzFeed, which first reported the spend after receiving the details through a Freedom of Information request.

The filters only accounted for 5 per cent of the ad campaign, most of which was presumably spent on more traditional advertising. Snapchat has been looking to take ad spending from those routes - Facebook and Google, as well as newspapers and billboards - by offering marketers a way of getting hold of the huge number of teenagers that use it.

Snapchat’s users mostly fit into highly sought-after demographics of young people. And the filters also have the advantage of getting around ad-blockers and encouraging people to send out the messages to others.

The app has been gradually removing most of its other ways of monetising its users. It previously offered people the option to pay either for custom filters or to watch snaps over again - but both of those have been removed, to focus on advertising instead.