Navigating the digital world with your child

Parent Guidance for setting up Snapchat Parental Controls

Like many other social networks, the minimum user age for Snapchat is 13 years old. This is because GDPR laws do not allow the collection of children’s data under 1 3.

Most young people use Snapchat to socialise with their friends but there is a risk of them coming across mature content. The four risky areas are:

• The myth of the disappearing message. Your child really needs to understand that the content they share can be saved and shared and never go away. It’s best to have this conversation before they download Snapchat. • The time distraction: Snapchat is fun to use. Snapchat streaks and stories add a time pressure element that make young people feel like they have to check it. • Privacy and Safety. It is easy to add friends on Snapchat and your child can end up with lots of friends you don’t know! Depending on the privacy settings that have been set the app collects lots of data about the user’s habits in and outside of the app. Snapchat works with third parties and they share the data, • My AI – Like Snapchat, My AI is intended for users aged 13 and older. It has safeguards to protect users from dangerous responses but some outputs might include harmful or misleading information. As such, you should talk to your child about the AI element and encourage them to think critically about the content it produces. To keep your child safe, we recommend the following to help you monitor your child’s Snapchat. We strongly advise that you apply parental restrictions in your child’s app. The settings menus are listed below:

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Chatting

Location Sharing

Sharing Data

Social Networking

Inappropriate content Privacy and Theft identity

Location Sharing

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