How to monitor Snapchat on your Child's iPhone or iPad
Monitor all Snapchat activity, including disappearing messages, snaps, stories your child views, and who they are interacting with.
If you are trying to ensure your child uses Snapchat on their iPhone or iPad in a safe way, we'd highly recommend monitoring their use of Snapchat. This app is notoriously difficult to monitor on a child's iPhone due to the disappearing messages feature. However, it's possible to completely monitor your child's Snapchat activities, even private messages that are automatically deleted. When a child knows that Snapchat is being monitored, they are more likely to make wiser decisions since they know that their activities can be seen. In this guide, we'll explore the most effective ways to monitor all Snapchat activity on a child's iPhone or iPad.
Monitor stories and spotlight content your child is seeing
Snapchat has a public video feed where your child can see videos from other Snapchat users, even if they aren't on your child's friend list. This is one of the riskier aspects of Snapchat since your child can discover inappropriate videos and profiles through this feed.
Our first recommendation is to set up parental controls on Snapchat to turn on Snapchat's automatic filter to remove some of the inappropriate content.
But here's the problem: your child can easily access Snapchat while not signed in, allowing them to use it without content restrictions.
For example, it's easy to navigate to https://www.snapchat.com/spotlight in a Safari private window and use Snapchat unfiltered.
This is why we highly recommend using an iPhone parental monitoring app to capture all app activity on a child's device.
With this approach, you can see what your child is looking at on Snapchat whether they are using the app or accessing Snapchat stories in Safari or Chrome.
Monitor Snapchat profiles your child is viewing
As we discussed earlier, your child can access a public video feed of Snapchat stories and discover other Snapchat profiles this way. Some Snapchat profiles are used to advertise explicit websites and content.
A common scenario we see at Tech Lockdown is this:
- A child accesses Snapchat's public spotlight feed.
- Content that is more sexualized tends to be suggested since "click bait" content with attractive people gets more attention.
- The child clicks into the profile to see more content.
- That profile advertises a link to a page that shows explicit content.
This is a common scenario seen on almost every platform. Attractive people use social media to promote themselves and they frequently use a Snapchat account to promote more explicit content.
The only real way to mitigate this risk is to set up a screen monitoring app like LivingRoom for Families , which records the iPhone's screen as your child uses Snapchat. Because there is a clear recording overlay, it completely deters a child from seeking out inappropriate content since they know a parent can see what they are looking at.
Parents can review screenshots of Snapchat activity to discover any risky behavior.
How to monitor disappearing or deleted Snapchat private messages
The hardest aspect of Snapchat monitoring is viewing the disappearing messages. "Snaps" disappear automatically, so discovering who your child is messaging and what they are saying isn't as easy as picking up their device and reviewing their Snapchat message history.
The only way around this is to use an iPhone screen monitoring app like LivingRoom for Families that records the screen as your child uses Snapchat.
The added benefit of this approach is that any stranger messaging your child will see a clear message that the chat isn't private, which mitigates the risk surrounding adults messaging a teen on Snapchat.
You can review screenshots of Snapchat activity in the LivingRoom parents dashboard.