Snapchat's parental guidance feature to roll out in India: Report

Snapchat is rolling out its parental control features now for Indian users, reports Techcrunch. Earlier in August, the popular messaging platform brought in-app parental control tool - Family Center in the US, which authorized parents to see who their teens are talking to without disclosing the content of their chat.

What does this parental control tool do?

Since Snapchat is not intended to be used by children, Snapchat has brought the Family Center feature for parents and guardians whose teenagers are between the age of 13 and 18.

Parents can invite their teens to join the Family Center on Snapchat. When teens accept an invitation, parents can examine their children’s friends list and who they have messaged in the last week. They can also anonymously report any concerning accounts.

How to switch on the Family Center feature?

The Family Center parental tool comes built-in into the Snapchat application itself.

To use the new function, parents, and guardians must download the Snapchat app on their devices and complete an opt-in invite process to link their accounts to those of their teenagers.

Once the accounts are connected, the tool can be accessed with all of its features via the Snapchat app’s Profile Settings or by using the Search feature to look for “family” or “family centre.”

Teenager’s safety and privacy

Launching the feature, Jeremy Voss, Snap’s head of messaging products, had said that this takes the right path for strengthening safety and well-being, while still preserving autonomy and privacy.

Snap already comes with certain teen protection policies. Individuals under the age of 18 who use Snapchat have private profiles by default, and only users who share friends with them appear as suggested friends in search queries. Also, to sign up, users must be at least 13 years old. Further, the picture-sharing platform is planning to introduce more features, including notifications to parents when their teen reports abuse.