A Guide to Digital Safety
An interactive program for teens developed by Snapchat in collaboration with leading safety experts.
Safety Guides for Parents
What is Snapchat?
Snapchat is a 13+ platform that offers people a different way to communicate – to share the moment, in the moment, and to help people feel together even when they are physically far apart. Snapchat has become one of the world’s largest and most popular communications platforms because it’s designed to bring people closer to their friends and family.
Protections for Teens on Snapchat
We have strict default settings for teens to keep the focus on connecting with friends, preventing unwanted contact, and ensuring an age-appropriate content experience. These protections cannot be turned off.
About Snapchat Family Center
We designed Family Center to empower parents with valuable insight into how their teens use Snapchat without undermining trust. These comprehensive features underscore our commitment to supporting parents in guiding their teens toward a safe and positive online experience.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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.
Teens must be at least 13 to create a Snapchat account. If we determine that an account belongs to a person under 13, or the minimum age for their jurisdiction, we terminate their account from the platform and delete their data. We hope you learn more about Snapchat from this page to help you make an informed decision for your family.
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 on Snapchat, we don’t allow 13-17- year-olds with existing Snapchat accounts to change their birthday.
If you think a Snapchat account belongs to someone under the minimum age (for example, under 13), please report the underage user here: Report an underage account.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
Snap Map Safety
Explore new location-sharing features on Family Center, our in-app hub where we offer Snapchat parental tools and resources.
Stay Close on Snapchat
Near or far, Snapchat helps people stay close to their loved ones. Just ask these friends and family members who have kept in touch on Snapchat every single day for more than six years and counting! Take a look at how they're using Snapchat to stay connected and spread joy.
Snapchat Safeguards for Teens
Snapchat was designed to bring you closer to friends and family, in an environment that prioritizes safety and privacy. Our Head of Safety Operations & Outreach, Rachel Hochhauser, shares more about the safeguards on Snapchat in place to protect teens.
Evan at 2024 WeProtect Summit
For the WeProtect Global Alliance 2024 summit, our CEO Evan Spiegel sat down with Snap Safety Advisory Board Member Jacob Sedesse to discuss Snapchat’s inception, privacy- and safety-by-design, how we work to help cultivate a safe and fun environment for our community, and more.
What is Family Center?
Snapchat’s Family Center is our set of parental tools that help parents see who their teens are communicating with on Snapchat, and see their location – helping families stay connected while out and about. Family Center reflects the dynamics of real-world relationships between parents and teens, where parents have insight into who their teens are spending time with, while still respecting teens’ privacy.