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.
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.
About Snapchat Family Centre
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.
Common Sense Media Guide
Learn simple strategies to facilitate healthier conversations around digital boundaries.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here’s a checklist of important tips to help you Snap safely.
Only invite and accept friend invitations from people they know in real life.
Choose a username that doesn’t include their age, birthdate, personal information, or suggestive language. Usernames should never include personal information like age or birthdate.
Having an accurate birthdate is the only way teens can benefit from our age-appropriate safety protections on Snapchat.
Location-sharing on our Map is off by default for everyone. If teens are going to turn it on, it should only be used with their trusted friends and family.
When it comes to safety and well-being, there are no wrong questions or conversations. Teens should speak to a trusted adult if they have a concern.
Snapchatters should know that reports are confidential – and go directly to our24/7 Trust & Safety team for review.
As with sharing anything online, it’s important to be really careful about requesting or sending anyone – even a partner or close friend – private or sensitive images and information.
Make sure you and your family are set up inFamily Centre, our in-app parental controls, where parents can see which friends their teens are talking to, view their privacy and safety settings, set Content Controls, and more.
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