Snapchat Adds New Safety Features, Including Live Location Requests

Snapchat’s adding a new safety feature to its Snap Map, with parents now able to request that their teen share their real time location in the app.

As you can see in this example, the new function will enable parents to send a request through to their teen at any time, prompting the user to then share their live location. Parents will also be able to share their location back, helping to keep users and their family aware of where they are at any given time.

It could be a good way to help reassure parents of their child’s location, making Snap a more valued connective app, and providing a simple means to keep tabs on their child, without being intrusive.

I mean, it might also feel a bit overbearing for the teen, but used in moderation, it could provide more peace of mind, ensuring more safety as your teens start expanding their movements.

It is also worth noting that you can already request a contact’s location via iOS or the Google Maps app on Android, so the functionality itself is not totally new, but having it active within Snap, where your kids are more likely to be active, could serve as a more effective reminder.

In addition to this, Snap’s giving parents more visibility of their teen’s location-sharing selections.

So now, parents will be able to see who their teen is sharing their live location info with, in case there are any concerns on this front.

As per Snap:

“This will allow parents to see which friends their teen shares their location with on Snap Map, helping families have informed conversations about what sharing choices work best for them.”

Snap’s also adding “Travel Notifications”, which will alert parents when their teen leaves from, or arrives at designated locations (like home, school, etc.), while it’s also rolling out additional reminders for users to review their location sharing settings at regular intervals.

Because you may no longer want your ex-girlfriend to be tracking your movements. 

The feature adds to Snap’s existing Family Center functions, which provide a range of options to help parents keep tabs on who their teens are connecting with in the app. And given Snap’s popularity among teen users (Pew Research data suggests that around 60% of U.S. teens use Snap regularly), these could be very valuable additions, making Snap a more trusted partner, as opposed to “that secret messaging app”.

Indeed, Snap’s come a long way in this respect, and features like this could actually see parents come to rely on Snap more as a key connective medium, especially for older teens.  

Snapchat says that all of these features will be rolling out over the coming weeks.