By Charlotte Webster
Parents will be able to see who their child is chatting with on Facebook’s Messenger app following a improved controls designed to provide greater protection for young people online.
The social network has announced several tools for its Messenger Kids platform, which first launched in 2017 as a more effective and child-friendly way to communicate with under-13s, controlled from a parent’s main Facebook account.
The Parent Dashboard feature says guardians will be able to see who their child is chatting with, whether they are video chatting or sending messages, as well as their chat history which will reveal how frequently those conversations happened over the past 30 days. Parents will also be able to see photos and videos both sent and received by the minor’s account, with the ability to remove and report them.
The enhancements come after concerns were raised about the app last year, when a flaw on Messenger Kids meant children could have come into contact with people not approved by their parents. Where the young user has blocked or unblocked anyone, parents can access a full list, on top of the notification they already receive whenever a child blocks or reports someone.
Facebook said it will start using “kid-appropriate language” to explain how their information is used and shared. Last August, Facebook fixed a flaw within the app that accidentally allowed thousands of children to join group chats in which not all children participating in the chats were approved by parents. Facebook has also been moving to encrypt its messaging services, which include Facebook Messenger and Instagram.
The child protection agency NSPCC said in August that Facebook risked becoming a “one stop grooming shop” for children if they continued to enforced end-to-end-encryption.