Protect Your Information from Snapchat’s Map

1. Protect Your Information from Snapchat’s Map You can learn how to protect your information by checking out SpyFly. Sneaky tracking features are becoming the norm with many of the popular social media apps. Your location or your child’s location could be discoverable and available to complete strangers unless you configure your settings correctly. When using any social media apps it is always good practice to familiarize yourself with the privacy settings, and the terms of service. Failing to pay attention to these details could jeopardize your safety. Last month, Snapchat introduced an opt-in function called Snap Map that allows users to share their location with anyone on their friend’s list. At first, it seems like a harmless addition to the Snapchat experience, but if you look a little deeper into the concept, you can see where there is a concern for safety.

2. Of course, if it is only friends that can see the information it’s probably not a big deal. However, just because they are part of your friends list, does not mean they are really friends. There is also the factor that they have friends as well as to their friends, and so on. If a friend of a friend’s friend is able to see your location is it really only your friends list that can see where you are? By sharing the location of posted Snaps to “Our Story”, users can add to the collection of Snaps from a particular event. This is how they show their friends where the hang-outs are. So if there’s something cool happening like a concert, for example, you can see where it is and who is there. Jack Brody, a product designer at Snapchat had this to say, “This map isn’t about where I am, it’s about where my friends are and what are they up to? It’s not about figuring out how to get to your destination, but about discovering where you want to go.” This feature isn’t only for sharing location to certain events. You can also choose to share your location without submitting it to “Our Story”. But what you probably don’t know is that if you’ve enabled location sharing, Snap Map will share your exact location with anyone on your friends list every time you open the app, reports TheVerge. Yikes! That can easily lead to mishaps and dangerous situations. There is a very big possibility that you don’t want certain people to know where you are and for good reason. Things like this make it very important to keep track of your settings and don’t forget. The Red Flags Snap Map is awesome for keeping up with friends based on their Snapchat activity or finding your next adventure. But, what happens when the wrong person gets ahold of your whereabouts? Should we be taking precautions when using this unprecedented feature? It may not be healthy to always see other people as potential psychos who want to hurt you. However, it is not unhealthy to keep yourself safe. You never know what the next person is planning, or thinking so making a choice to be cautious is not only smart but necessary. Predators look for unsuspecting people that they can take by surprise. Be aware.

3. Child Safety when Using Snapchat Germantown Police, WI are also warning parents about the dangers of the feature. “It can give you the area, town, and street and if you zoom in enough, it shows the house on the street layout. This could be a bit concerning for parents and others who want to maintain some privacy.” Anna, 16, says yes. “they try to advertise it as like ‘how cute’ but it’s like, it’s scary. I don’t want people to know where I’m at.” She has a legitimate concern for her own safety. Unfortunately, young ladies are easy targets for grown men that are less than moral. The less she puts herself at risk of being tracked or spied on, the better her odds are at staying safe. A lot of teens and younger kids love the Snapchat app because of the funny photo features it has. This means that a lot of younger people have the Snapchat app on their phones and could be at risk. Snapchat argues that since the feature can be turned off or on at any time there is no danger. The problem is that at this point there is no reminder that the Snap Map is still running in the background. There are a lot of children that have a hard enough time remembering to brush their teeth before bed let alone checking to see if the map settings in Snapchat have been turned off. This means that the Snap Map feature could be running in the background indefinitely while the child goes about life without a clue that they are sharing their location. How it Works To use the new location-based feature, you must first update your Snapchat app. Then, pinch your fingers together on your home camera screen. This will give you a few privacy options that will let you choose whether or not you want to share your location with your Snapchat friends. You’ll have the option to share it with all of your friends, select a few, or none of them at all aka “Ghost Mode”. Don’t Want to Appear on Snapchat? Here’s how:

4. It’s understandable if you don’t want to share your location with your Snapchat friends. In order to determine who your location is visible to, go to the settings area and scroll down to where you see “See My Location.” To the right of this, there will be a status indicator that says who can see you. If you click there you have the option to appoint people who are allowed to see where you are. To hide your location, you can choose Ghost Mode as seen below. If you have not enabled location sharing in the app, you have nothing to worry about because by default you are protected and set to Ghost Mode. Because the app has to be opted in so that it tracks you Snapchat is protected. I guess if you are an adult and have enough wisdom to keep your settings in mind, you are OK. Your kids, on the other hand, may need reminders here and there that they could be being tracked. Not everybody has the ability to continually make wise choices. That is OK, we are here to help. For more tips on how to protect your privacy and stay safe online visit SpyFly. This is the wisest choice you could make all year. 5 Simple Steps to Keep Your Snapchat Account Secure Teenagers have flocked to Snapchat giving parents yet another front to monitor in the social media online world. Follow these steps: 1.Use 2 Factor Authentication - this can be found in settings by tapping the gear icon and scroll down to Login Verification, then hit Continue. You can then set-up two-factor for all new sign-ins to have both the password and a code sent to the mobile phone on file. 2.Share content only with friends - this may be hard for your teen to understand. The default setting is friend-only but users like to change this.

5. This is one area where you will have to check the settings on a regular basis as your teen may change this and there is no other way to mandate it as a parent. 3.Turn on Ghost Mode for Location - this is new to Snapchat as they were receiving complaints about the tracking feature. It basically allows all your contacts to know where you are allowing anyone that follows you to know where you are at all the time. 4.Disable Quick Add - this is an extra privacy feature. It allows people (strangers) to not be able to find you through Quick Add suggestions. This is also disabled through SnapChat Settings/Who tab. 5.Stop sharing usage data with SnapChat - SnapChat tracks all kinds of things. Location (for ads), your usage times and patterns, and much more. You can stop SnapChat from collecting this data and profiling you by heading over to settings then Manage Preferences tab and find Ad Preferences, from there you can block this data collection feature by unchecking the Activity Based Ads box. See original content@ https://www.spyfly.com/helpful-articles/protecting-your- information/snapchat-map-is-it-safe/