Snapchat brings parental controls to India through in-app tool ‘Family Center’

In India, a couple of months after its debut in the U.S., a set of parental controls will be added to the app.

The in-app tool lets parents and guardians review who their teens are friends with on the social app and who they have messaged in the last seven days. They can't see the exact contents of those messages. The ability to report safety concerns and abuse to the trust and safety team is brought about by this.

To use the new feature, parents and guardian need to link their accounts with their teens using an opt-in invite process. Once the accounts are linked, the tool can be accessed with all its controls either from theSnapchat app's Profile settings or from the app's search function.

The family center is on the platform.

The parental controls are available to parents if their teen is between 13 and 18.

In October last year, the company introduced its parental controls in the U.S. The launch of similar features by other social networking platforms followed. It isn't as broad as Snap's. It doesn't allow parents to restrict their teens from using the app after a certain time frame, for example, a feature that both TikTok andInstagram offer.

Sexting is not addressed with the new tool by the Santa Monica, California-based company. The app can be used and abused.

Teens are required to have mutual friends before they can start chatting on ephemeral messaging service. Teenagers are not allowed to have public profiles.

The Family Center feature in India will be launched with the help of local nonprofits, according to the company. New parental controls will be added by the company.

Through its Family Center, snapchat gives insights to parents and guardians.

New features will be added to Family Center in the coming months. Teens will be able to let their parents know when they report a piece of content to the platform.

As our community continues to grow, we know parents and caregivers want additional ways to help keep their teens safe, and thatSnapchat is a central communications tool for so many young Indians. The new in-app Family Center tool will help parents get more insight into who their teens are friends with onSnapchat, to help foster positive conversations about online safety while respecting the privacy and autonomy of teens.

World Mental Health Day and Bullying Prevention month are celebrated by Snap. The company in India is working with Sangath.

According to Sensor Tower, India is an important market for Snap where it has more than 100 million users. In August of this year, the South Asian market saw the introduction of the premium service, Snapchat+.