Snapchat Safeguards, Explained
Teens on Snapchat (ages 13-17) have additional layers of protection with strict settings turned on by default. Hear from our Head of Safety Operations and Outreach, Rachel Hochhauser, on the details of these settings and protections.
Breakdown of our Protections for Teens on Snapchat
Quick Links
Need to get in touch?
Developed with guidance from
Security Check-ins For Teens
We send all Snapchatters, including teens, regular reminders to check their privacy settings and account security. The Snap Map Privacy & Safety Reminder support page explains how teens can enable and disable location sharing, and key privacy and safety tips they should consider when sharing.
We also recommend that all Snapchatters enable two-factor authentication and verify their email and phone number. Enabling these additional protections makes it harder for bad actors to compromise their accounts.
Snapchat Age Minimum
Teens must declare that they are at least 13 to create a Snapchat account. If we become aware 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 safety protections. To help prevent teens from circumventing these safeguards, we don’t allow Snapchatters who have already set their age as 13-17 to change their birth year to an age of 18 or above.
Strong Default Settings
We give Teens on Snapchat (ages 13-17) additional layers of protection, with safety and privacy settings on by default.
Teen Accounts are Private By Default:
Like all Snapchat accounts, teen accounts are private by default. This means that friend lists are private, and that Snapchatters can only communicate with mutually accepted friends or those whose numbers they have already saved to their contacts.
Snapchatters need to be Friends to Tag each other:
Snapchatters can tag each other in Snaps, Stories or Spotlight videos only if they are already friends (or followers of those who have Public Profiles).
Public Profiles: Off by Default, Only Available to Older Teens:
Some older teens (ages 16-17), have access to Public Profiles, an introductory experience that allows them to share content more widely on Snapchat, if they choose, with thoughtful protections in place, this feature is off by default for these users. Through Public Profiles, these older teens can share their Snaps publicly by posting a public Story or submitting a video to Spotlight. These Snaps can then be saved to their Public Profile so they can showcase their favourite posts.
For older teens that have this option to share content publicly, they decide whether to make each piece of content public or private when posting. In addition, as with all Snapchatters, they have control over each piece of content they create with intentional posting options that let them determine where Snaps are shared, who can see them and if they are saved to their profile.
Younger teens (ages 13-15) do not have access to Public Profiles.
Age Appropriate Content by Default:
We limit the ability for unmoderated content to get wide distribution on Snapchat. As part of this moderation, we use detection tools and additional processes to review this public content against our Community Guidelines before it can get broadcast to a larger audience.
We have extra protections in place to provide an age-appropriate experience to teens. For example, we use a combination of human review and machine learning to identify user-generated public content that some may not find appropriate so it is not eligible for recommendation to teen accounts.
We also use strong proactive detection tools to try to find public profiles that try to market age-inappropriate content, and strive to take action against those accounts in accordance with our Community Guidelines.
Location Sharing: Off by Default:
Location sharing on the Snap Map is off by default for all Snapchatters. Snapchatters who do want to share their precise location can only share that location with their friends on Snapchat, and can choose which of those friends can see their location on the Snap Map by adjusting their settings. There is no option to share location with those who are not your friends on Snapchat.
Content and Advertising
Engagement on Content from Real Friends:
Older teens (ages 16-17) are able to receive Story replies on their public Stories from those who follow them, but cannot engage in direct Chat conversations from those replies. Replies are filtered before they reach creators on Snapchat – and that filtering is even stricter for older teens with Public Profiles. Snapchatters even have the option to turn off replies altogether, or to block various terms to help them keep interactions respectful and fun. And to keep teens safe, we’ve taken extra steps to prevent public content from leading to unwanted chats from adults who aren’t part of the teen’s existing friend network.
Limited Distribution of Public Teen Content:
Public Stories posted by older teens are only recommended to Snapchatters who are already their friends or followers and to other Snapchatters with whom they share mutual friends. These public Stories are not distributed to the wider community, including not being included in the section of our app where Snapchatters find a personalised viewing experience with content that’s relevant for them.
Creativity Over Social Comparison metrics:
Teen Snapchatters will not see how many people “favourited” their Stories or Spotlights, keeping the focus on creativity over pressure to collect public approval metrics.
Proactive Content Review:
We understand that older teens may need an introduction to Snapchat’s Content Guidelines, and we want to protect Snapchatters from posting something they might not have thought through thoroughly. We proactively moderate Spotlight videos using human and machine review to try and moderate this type of content before it can be recommended widely.
Age Appropriate Advertising:
Ads on Snapchat are subject to category and location-specific review to identify and restrict ads that violate our ads policies, and additional restrictions apply to both the content and targeting of ads for teens. For example, we have restrictions to prevent ads for gambling or alcohol to be shown to those under the legal age in their jurisdiction. We provide additional information specific to our advertising practices here.
Friending and Contact Protections
We want teens to be able to find and communicate with their real friends on Snapchat, and make it difficult for strangers to find teens on Snapchat. We do this by blocking teens from showing up in search results unless we have indications of an existing connection with the other user, such as having several mutual connections in common or being existing phone contacts with each other.
We continuously explore other ways to make it more difficult for teens to connect with Snapchatters outside their real-world friend network.
Blocking, Hiding and Reporting
If a teen doesn’t want to hear from another Snapchatter again, we offer in-app tools to report, block or hide other Snapchatters.
In-Chat Warnings
If a teen sends a message to or receives a message from someone they don’t already share mutual friends with or have in their contacts, they will see an in-app warning. The message warns teens to carefully consider if they want to allow contact and serves to remind them to only connect with people they trust.