Ammon News - British media regulator Ofcom said on Friday that Snapchat had begun disabling its "Find Friends" feature by default for ​child users in Britain, in what it called an important step ‌to reduce the risk of online grooming.

The friend-discovery feature helps users find and add new contacts.

Ofcom said the change would make it harder for strangers to contact children on ​the image-sharing social media platform, one it considers among the largest and ​most popular online services used by children in Britain.

The regulator said in ⁠May that Snapchat was used by 32% of children aged 8 to ​12 in Britain, despite the platform's minimum age restriction of 13.

Oliver Griffiths, director ​of Ofcom's Online Safety Group, said the change was "long overdue" and the regulator would monitor Snapchat's rollout of the new protection this month.

Snapchat had committed to make such a change ​in May, and told the regulator more recently that effective age checks for ​under 18s should be in place by the end of the year.

A spokesperson for Snapchat ‌said ⁠the platform would "continue to strengthen our protections as risks evolve and work constructively with Ofcom, safety experts, families, and young people to help ensure Snapchat remains a safe place for people to communicate and express themselves."

There have long been ​concerns about online grooming ​on social media.

A ⁠2025 analysis of British police data by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children showed that ​40% of recorded offences involving sexual communication with a child ​where the ⁠platform was identified took place on Snapchat.

Ofcom has pressed major tech firms to introduce stronger anti-grooming measures. It has said that online grooming can have "devastating, lifelong consequences" ⁠for ​children.

The regulator also re-issued a warning to other ​tech companies failing to tackle grooming risks, saying they risked fines of up to 10% of their ​qualifying global revenue.


Reuters