The UK’s data regulator is looking at Snapchat’s ability to remove underage users from its platform amid concerns raised over its safeguarding efforts for younger users.
The Information Commissioner’s Office has begin gathering information on whether the social media app’s parent, Snap, is doing enough to ensure young children have had their accounts removed from the site, according to the Reuters news agency.
At present major social media apps including Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok require users to be above the age of 13 in order to protect younger children from harmful material.
It comes after a report shared with media regulator Ofcom found Snapchat had barely removed any underage children from its platform in the UK.
Just 700 suspected underage accounts were removed from Snapchat by owner Snap Inc in the UK between April 2021 and April 2022, according to data filed with Ofcom seen by Reuters. That represents just 0.4% of the some 180,000 accounts removed by TikTok over the same period.
An anonymous Snap insider told Reuters: “It makes no sense that Snapchat is blocking a fraction of the number of children that TikTok is.”
Snapchat automatically blocks users who seek to create an account using a date of birth which indicates they are under 13. But according to Ofcom, nearly two-thirds of children under the age of 13 have at least one social media account, suggesting that many use a fake date of birth to bypass age restrictions.
A Snap spokesperson said the figures were from a leaked document and misrepresented the scale of work the company did to keep under-13s off its platform.
They said in a statement: “We take our obligations to keep under 13s off of Snapchat seriously. Every month in the UK we block or delete tens of thousands of attempts from underage users to create a Snapchat account.
“This is an industry wide-challenge and we are working collaboratively with the government, regulators and other tech companies to find industry-wide solutions.”
