Instagram will allow parents to see who their children are messaging as part of sweeping safety changes coming to the social media app amid concerns over online grooming and sextortion.
The Meta-owned platform, which is aimed at children aged 13 and over, is to tighten up the privacy settings for millions of teenagers who use Instagram, placing under-18s by default into more restrictive “teen accounts”.
Users under the age of 16 will also require parental permission to disable some of these privacy settings, meaning they have to link their account to that of a responsible adult.
“Teen accounts have built-in protections which limit who can contact them and the content they see, and also provide new ways for teens to explore their interests,” Instagram said in a blog post.
“Teens under 16 will need a parent’s permission to change any of these settings to be less strict.”
The new features will also offer parents the opportunity to see who their child has been messaging in the last seven days under its “parental supervision” tool, although the contents of the communications will remain private.
Under the changes, teenage accounts will be automatically set to private, meaning their posts cannot be viewed by strangers.
They will need an adult with their own Instagram account to change the settings to make it public.
Adults who are linked to a child’s account will also be able to implement a social media curfew on their child’s app, blocking it between the hours of 10pm and 7am.