Unlike other social media platforms such as Facebook who show your location only when decide to share it, Snapchat constantly updates your location every time you open the app. Snapchat’s Snap Map pins a user’s name alongside a caricature of the user (called an ‘ActionMoji’ ) to the map based on their current location. While Snapchat have gone to some lengths to ensure a user’s privacy isn’t breached, you’ll still need to ensure any children in your care understand the inherent dangers of sharing their location over the internet, and preferably have the feature turned off. ‘ Snap Map ’ is a new GPS-based feature that allows users to share, search and view publicly submitted photos and videos based on their location. So if you aren’t already aware of Snapchat’s latest feature ‘Snap Map’, you’re going to want to read on. With over 150 million daily users, a huge portion of young people already have accounts and are sharing photos with their friends. Snapchat is free to use, and one of the top five social media platforms most used by kids.

The fact photos delete themselves up to 10 seconds after being viewed makes Snapchat a popular platform for ‘ sexting ’ – but that’s another story.

If you’re a regular reader of Internet Safe Education, you probably already know a lot about Snapchat the app that allows users to share ‘self-destructing’ photos or videos with their friends.

Snap maps online