Snapchat to let parents see who their kids are chatting with in app

Image: Snap

According to the company, the new supervision tool mimics how parents and teenagers interact in the real world.

Parents can keep an eye on who their teens communicate with on the app without revealing what they are saying to each other. The family center invite must be accepted by the guardian and child before the oversight tools can take effect. Once the invites are accepted, a guardian can see the entirety of their child's friends list and a list of accounts they've interacted with over the last 7 days.

The goal was to create tools that reflected the dynamics of real-world relationships and foster collaboration and trust between parents and teens. The feature is meant to mimic real-life relationships, like when a parent lets a kid's friends come over but doesn't keep an eye on them.

New features in the Family Center will include tools for parents to view new friends their children have added, as well as additional content controls.

Image: Snap

Lawmakers are working to address children's online safety. Some of the largest tech platforms were summoned to testify before Congress after it was revealed that Meta's platforms can harm young users. There was a representative from the company before a Senate committee.

At last year's hearing, the vice president of global public policy at the company said thatSnapchat was built as an antidote to social media.

The introduction of a number of bills to tackle children's safety online is a result of the disclosures made by Haugen. Two bills that would restrict how tech platforms can collect and use data from young users were approved last month by a Senate panel.

The Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act would ban tech companies from collecting the data of users between the ages of 13 and 16 without their parents' consent. The Kids Online Safety Act would make it easier for young users to remove their data from platforms. The age limit for federal law to cover the privacy of children between the ages of 13 and 18 years old has been called for to be raised.

The company announced on Tuesday that it was working on a tool for the family. The goal of the company is to educate and empower young people to make the right choices to enhance their online safety and to help parents be partners with their kids in navigating the digital world.

A feature limiting the number of friend suggestions a teenager sees on the app was launched in January. Kids between the ages of 13 to 17 only get suggestions for accounts that have a certain number of friends in common with them.