Is Snapchat safe for kids? A guide for Australian parents

Snapchat is on Australia's banned list. From 10 December 2025, Snapchat is required to take reasonable steps to prevent children under 16 from holding accounts. That's meaningful — and it's also not the end of the story, because not every child stopped using it, and the ban says nothing about the features that make Snapchat specifically worth understanding.

Snapchat is covered by Australia's social media ban

Under the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024, Snapchat is one of ten platforms required to prevent under-16 account holders. Penalties of up to approximately $49.5 million fall on the platform, not on families. For the full list and what the law actually covers, see our guide: Australia's social media ban, explained for parents.

• Snapchat — banned for under-16s
• Instagram — banned for under-16s
• TikTok — banned for under-16s
• Facebook — banned for under-16s

Why the ban doesn't fully solve it

Age verification on Snapchat relies on self-reported date of birth and, where triggered, document or AI-based checks. Determined teenagers can and do work around these — with borrowed accounts, VPNs or simply providing a false age. The ban reduces casual access; it doesn't eliminate it. The same limitations apply to TikTok, which shares the banned list.

The features that make Snapchat specifically risky

• Disappearing messages. Snaps and chats that delete automatically are the platform's founding feature. They create a misleading sense of privacy and make it much harder to know what your child is sharing or receiving. They don't prevent screenshots — but they do prevent a visible record.
• Snap Map. Snapchat's built-in location feature shows a user's real-time position on a map, visible to friends. By default it is not always active, but when it is, it broadcasts your child's physical location. Ghost Mode turns this off and should be enabled.
• The Discover feed. Snapchat's algorithmically curated Discover section surfaces content from publishers and creators that is frequently not age-appropriate — celebrity gossip, body-image content, and occasionally more concerning material. This is separate from snaps from friends.
• Quick Add. Snapchat's friend suggestion feature can surface strangers to your child and add your child to strangers' suggestion lists based on mutual contacts. It's easy to accidentally add people your child doesn't actually know.

What to do if your child has — or wants — Snapchat

• Start with Ghost Mode. In Snap Map settings, enable Ghost Mode so your child's location is not shared. This is the most urgent setting to check.
• Review who they're friends with. In Snapchat's settings, you can see and manage the friend list. A meaningful number of people your child has never met is a conversation worth having.
• Turn off Quick Add. In Privacy settings, you can stop your child's account from appearing in other people's Quick Add suggestions.
• Talk about the disappearing messages dynamic. Not to warn about it in a scary way, but to make sure your child understands that screenshots exist, that "deleted" is not the same as "gone", and that they should only send things they'd be comfortable you seeing.

A note from us

Snapchat came up more than any other platform in the conversations that led us to build Aunty Bea — specifically the combination of disappearing messages and location sharing. The ban is a genuine step forward. But the features that make Snapchat the platform it is didn't change on 10 December. One risk specific to disappearing-message platforms is sextortion — where someone uses images shared privately as leverage. If that's a conversation you want to be ready for, our guide on sextortion: what Australian parents need to know covers the pattern, the response steps, and where to report.