Parents

Snapchat Family Safety Hub

Snapchat was intentionally designed to be different from traditional social media, with an emphasis on enhancing communications with close friends and family in an environment that prioritizes their safety and privacy. Learn how Snapchat works, the key protections we offer for teens, and how to use our safety tools.

Safety Guides for Parents

What is Snapchat?

Snapchat is a communication service designed for people ages 13 and up. It’s popular with teenagers and young adults, who primarily use it to talk with their close friends, similar to the ways they interact in person.

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Protections for Teens on Snapchat

We offer extra teen protections on Snapchat to help keep the focus on connecting with close friends, preventing unwanted contact from strangers and providing an age-appropriate content experience.

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About Snapchat Family Center

We take our responsibility to help protect teens on Snapchat extremely seriously. As part of this, we arm parents with in-app safety tools and resources to help their teens use Snapchat safely.

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Video Resources for Parents on Snapchat

Explore these videos to understand what Snapchat is, how it can help your family stay connected, and the protections we have in place to help make Snapchat safe for teens. 

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About Snapchat

Snapchat is built to foster expressive communication with your closest friends, and we're deeply committed to helping teens on Snapchat have a healthy and safe experience.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is Snapchat?

Snapchat is a communication service that most people use to connect with their real friends and family, through chatting, Snapping (talking through pictures), or voice and video calls.

Does Snapchat have an age limit?

Teens must be at least 13 to create a Snapchat account. If we determine that an account belongs to a person under 13, we terminate their account from the platform and delete their data.

It’s critical that teens sign up with an accurate birthday so they can benefit from our Snapchat safety protections for teens. To help prevent teens from circumventing these safeguards, we don’t allow 13-17- year-olds with existing Snapchat accounts to change their birth year to an age of 18 or above.

How does Snapchat protect teens?

We offer extra protections for teens on Snapchat to help keep the focus on connecting with close friends, preventing unwanted contact from strangers, and providing an age-appropriate content experience.

How do I report a safety concern on Snapchat?

We offer easy ways for both teens and parents to confidentially report a safety concern to us – either directly in the app, or online for those who don’t have a Snapchat account.

Does Snapchat have privacy settings?

Yes, and by default, we set key safety and privacy settings for teens on Snapchat to strict standards. 

Contact settings for all users are set to friends and phone contacts only, and can’t be expanded. 

Location-sharing is off by default. If Snapchatters decide to use the location-sharing feature on our Snap Map, they can only share their location with people they are already friends with. There is no option to ever share location with someone who is not an accepted friend.

What is Family Center, and how can I access it?

Family Center is our in-app resource that offers parents the ability to do things like see who their teen is friends with and who they have messaged with recently, request their teen’s location, view their teen’s privacy and safety settings on Snapchat, and more.