Snapchat is stepping up its parental controls game. The company announced a new feature for its Family Center on Thursday that lets parents get notified when their teens arrive at or leave specific locations. This update is part of Snapchat’s ongoing effort to make its platform safer for younger users while keeping parents in the loop.
Before this, parents could only check their teen’s location manually on Snap Map or by visiting their profile. The new feature simplifies that process by sending push notifications directly to Family Center when a teen reaches or departs a designated spot—like school, practice, or home. Parents can set up notifications for up to three locations after their teen opts in to share their live location.
Snapchat is positioning the feature as a way to help families stay connected. “We’re adding travel notifications to Family Center to give parents more peace of mind knowing their teen has arrived at class, left sports practice on time, or even returned home after a night with friends,” Snapchat said in a blog post.
This move also puts Snapchat in direct competition with apps like Life360, which offers similar location-sharing features for families.
Snap is adding a couple of other privacy tools, too. Soon, parents will be able to see who their teens are sharing locations with, and Snapchat will start nudging users who share their location with all their friends to review those settings. These changes are part of the company’s broader effort to help users maintain better control over their privacy.
Snapchat says that more than 350 million people use Snap Map every month, making location-sharing a central part of the app. Despite this, its Family Center hasn’t seen wide adoption. The hub, launched in 2022, lets parents monitor how their teens use the app, but according to Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, only about 200,000 parents in the U.S. use the tools—compared to 20 million teens on the platform.
The new location alerts, alongside other updates, will roll out in the coming weeks. Whether they’ll be enough to boost Family Center’s adoption remains to be seen.
