Snapchat enhances family safety with new location tools

Snapchat has unveiled new location-sharing features as part of its Family Centre to enhance safety and connectivity among families.

The popular social media platform is expanding its Family Centre, an in-app hub providing parents with tools and resources to help monitor and manage their teenagers' activities within the app. More than 350 million users globally utilise Snap Map monthly for location sharing, according to the company.

Ben Au, Public Policy Lead for Australia and New Zealand at Snap, stating, "Snapchat is designed differently from more traditional social media - it's a place for real-life friendships. We've always had extra protections for teens, but there is no finish line when it comes to safety. We're committed to making Snapchat an even more fun and safe place for people to connect, and we're pleased to introduce these new features to our Family Centre parental tools to help our community do just that."

Among the new features is the "Share Location Through Family Centre" which allows parents and caregivers to request the real-time location of their teenagers via a new button. This feature also enables families to mutually share locations once they opt in, improving awareness of each other's whereabouts.

Parents will gain visibility into whom their teens share their location with by accessing the teens' location-sharing selections on Snap Map through the Family Centre settings. This upgrade aims to facilitate informed discussions about location-sharing preferences within families.

Additionally, Snapchat plans to introduce "Travel Notifications", enabling families to select up to three key locations such as home, school, or the gym. Parents will receive automatic alerts when their teens arrive at or leave these selected spots, providing added reassurance about their family members' movements.

Snapchat emphasises that location sharing is turned off by default across the app, and this feature can only be activated with accepted friends. To encourage thoughtful sharing, Snapchat is introducing reminders for users who opt to share their locations with all their friends, prompting users to reassess their choices upon connecting with new friends potentially outside their usual network.

These enhancements are part of Snapchat's continuous efforts to boost safety measures for teenagers and will be progressively rolled out in the coming weeks.