Snapchat is very popular with young people. It is a free app that lets you send a photo, short video or message to your contacts. The ‘snap’ appears on screen for up to 10 seconds before disappearing. Concerns have been strangers adding you, you cannot control what you see when you open a Snapchat from someone else and others can screenshot your Snapchats and then share them.  The NSPCC  Netaware and Connect Safely have produced guidance for parents.

Snap Map

Snapchat has just launched a new feature that lets other people find out exactly where you are at any given moment.

Snap Map lets you share your real-time location, which your friends can view on an interactive map that’s precise enough to show not only which street you’re on, but whereabouts you are on that street too.

Once you’re on the latest version of the app, you can launch Snap Map by pinching the Snapchat camera home screen.

From here, you can choose to share your location with all of your friends, some of them, or none of them with ‘Ghost Mode’, which hides you from the map but still allows you to track your friends.

Parents are being urged to make sure their children select Ghost Mode, and not the other two options.

WE DO NOT CONDONE THE USE OF ANY CHILDREN USING SNAPCHAT, AS THE MINIMUM AGE IS 13.