Snapchat launched its first parental control tool, which will allow parents to see who their teens are talking to.
Snap Inc, the owner of the popular messaging app Snapchat, on Tuesday, launched its first parental control tool that will allow parents to see who their teens are talking to.
The new feature called Family Center is being launched at a time when social media companies are being criticized for the lack of security for children. Parents can invite their teens to join the Family Center on Snapchat and once the teen consent, parents will be able to see their children’s list of friends and who they have messaged on the app over the past seven days. They can even secretly report any related accounts.
However, parents will not be able to see private content or messages sent from their teens, Jeremy Voss, Head of Messaging Products, Snape, said in an interview. He said that this will also maintain the privacy of children and they will also be safe due to the eyes of parents.
Snap said it plans to launch additional features in the coming months, including notifications to parents when their teens report abuse by a user. Before Family Center, Snap already had some teen safety policies.
As such, by default, profiles are private for Snapchat users under the age of 18 and they only appear as suggested friends in search results when their friends are similar to any other users. Users must be at most petite 13 years senior to sign up.
