Once known only for its self-destructing pics, Snapchat has steadily evolved its location-oriented social media features. It’s leaned further into that identity with real-time location sharing features in recent years, and now it’s tweaking the experience to give parents new control and insight directly from the Family Center.
Parents will soon see an option in the Family Center to request their teen’s locations and vice versa. They’ll also be able to more easily view who else their child is sharing their location with, just like they can for other privacy settings.
The feature will roll out alongside other new location and privacy tools in the coming weeks, including the ability to set up automatic travel alerts that notify family members when loved ones have arrived at or left from three designated locations, such as home or school. That’s similar to apps like Life360 but built into an app that some family members may already use.
According to Snap, the location features are accessible only by opting in and are limited to people who are already added as friends. It also said it’s adding an additional reminder for people who share their location with all of the friends on their list to review their settings whenever adding someone new.
Correction, November 14th: A previous version of this story described the location sharing features as new. In fact, they were already there, but the shortcuts and Family Center features for controlling them are changing, and the reference to an ongoing lawsuit has been adjusted.