Snapchat to notify parents when teens arrive at or leave specific locations

Snapchat is rolling out new features to its Family Center, aimed at giving parents more control and peace of mind when it comes to their teen’s location sharing. The update introduces travel notifications, allowing parents to receive alerts when their teen arrives at or leaves specific locations, such as school or sports practice. This addition makes it easier for families to stay connected and informed, as parents no longer need to manually check Snap Map or visit their child’s profile to monitor their whereabouts.

With this update, parents can now send a request to their teen through Family Center, asking them to share their live location. Once accepted, notifications can be set for up to three locations on the Snap Map. For instance, parents can get notified when their teen leaves school, arrives at extracurricular activities, or heads home. This new feature is designed to provide families with more insights into their teen’s daily movements, helping ensure their safety while giving parents greater visibility over location sharing.

Snapchat has long been a popular platform for location-sharing with over 350 million users engaging with Snap Map each month. This feature aims to build on that success by offering a more robust, family-friendly location sharing experience. Parents will also have visibility into which friends their teen is sharing their location with, promoting safer, more informed conversations about location settings.

In addition to these features, Snapchat will be adding reminders for users who share their location with all friends, encouraging them to review and adjust their privacy settings. The app will prompt users to reconsider sharing their location with people outside their immediate social circle, offering an extra layer of security for both teens and parents.

These new features are part of Snapchat’s ongoing effort to improve safety and parental controls. Since launching Family Center in 2022, Snapchat has added several updates to give parents greater insights into their child’s app usage, responding to growing concerns from lawmakers about protecting young users. However, despite these tools, only a small percentage of parents are utilizing Family Center, with estimates showing just 200,000 parents are actively engaging with the features, compared to the 20 million teens using Snapchat in the U.S.

With this update, Snapchat is positioning itself as a more family-friendly platform, attempting to rival services like Life360 that have long been popular for location tracking. By offering these new location sharing features, Snapchat hopes to help families stay connected and informed, without compromising on safety or privacy. The new features will begin rolling out in the coming weeks, providing families with an easier way to stay in touch, no matter where their day takes them.