Snap Inc. has announced new location-sharing features coming to Family Centre, Snapchat’s in-app hub, which offers parental tools and resources.
Snapchat is already home to one of the most popular maps on mobile. More than 350 million people use Snapchat’s Snap Map every month to share their location with their friends and family to help them stay safe while out and about, to find great places to visit nearby and to learn about the world through Snaps from around the globe. Soon, new Snap Map location sharing features in Family Centre will make it easier than ever for families to stay connected while out and about.
“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,” said Ben Au, public policy lead for Australia and New Zealand at Snap Inc.
The new Family Centre features announced today include:
Share Location Through Family Centre
With a new button in Snapchat’s Family Centre available now, parents and caregivers can send a request asking their teen to share their live location. It’s also easy for parents to share their location back – keeping everyone in the family on the same page about each others’ comings and goings once they’ve opted in.
Enhanced Settings Visibility
Already in Family Centre, parents can view some of their teen’s privacy and safety settings, and soon, they’ll have visibility into location-sharing selections too. This will allow parents to see which friends their teens share their location with on Snap Map, helping families have informed conversations about what sharing choices work best for them.
Travel Notifications
Families will soon be able to choose up to three specific locations on the Snap Map, like home, school, or the gym, and parents will receive notifications when their family member departs from or arrives at those designated locations. Snapchat is adding travel notifications to Family Centre to give parents more peace of mind knowing their teen has arrived at class, left sports practice on time, or even returned home after a night with friends. These features will be rolling out over the coming weeks.
Additional Safety Reminders
On Snapchat, location sharing is always off by default, and there is no option to ever share location with someone who is not an accepted friend. For people who do share their location with all of their Snapchat friends, Snapchat is adding new in-app reminders to review their selections. Snapchatters will see a pop-up when they add a new friend who may be outside their real-world network, prompting them to be extra thoughtful about their settings.
These new tools build on the platform’s ongoing work to further enhance safety for teens using Snapchat and will be rolled out over the coming weeks.
