Image-based tools like Snapchat and Instagram have become the social media of choice for the majority of youngsters, with a great proportion creating accounts on such systems long before they have reached the required minimum age of 13. This makes the latest major update to Snapchat particularly alarming and online safety experts are asking schools and parents to take action to safeguard children.
The new feature, called ‘Snap Map’, uses GPS tracking to show a real-time map of the location of everybody that is linked to a user. The fact that people are represented with cartoon-style avatars only increases the appeal of this for the younger audience. The risks for abuse of the information provided by SnapMap are obvious, particularly with regard to threats from predators who would be able to see exactly where a child lives, their regular route between school and home, etc.
To improve safety levels in response to this latest threat, please talk to children to ensure their privacy settings are appropriately set. Ensure they set themselves to ‘ghost mode’ on the Snap Map as this will prevent them from sharing their location with other users. To enable ghost mode, press on the gear icon at the top of the map to enter the settings mode. A lighter version of control on the settings screen allows users to specify which friends should be able to see your location on the map.