Snapchat will soon be able to alert parents when their teen leaves or arrives at certain locations

Snapchat offers enhanced sharing of geodata Family centerparental control center, the company announced Thursday.

Users have long been able to share their location with others on Snapchat, but the new addition allows parents to receive notifications from the app’s Family Center when their teen leaves or arrives at designated locations, such as school. Previously, parents had to find their teen on Snap Map or go to their profile to see where they are; this new feature makes tracking easier for parents as they can see their child’s location directly in Family Center.

The first time a parent sets this up, they send a request to their teen asking them to share their current location; alerts can be set to up to three locations on the Snap Map. So parents could be notified when their child leaves school, comes to piano lessons, and then goes home.

With this new feature, Snapchat may be looking to take on the role of the popular Life360 service, which allows families to track each other’s locations and receive updates when family members arrive or leave certain locations.

“We’re adding travel notifications to Family Center to give parents more peace of mind knowing their teen has made it to class, left practice on time, or even gotten home from a night out with friends,” Snapchat wrote in a blog post.

Parents will also soon be able to see who their teen shares their location with on Snapchat. Additionally, Snapchat will begin prompting users who choose to share their location with all their friends on the app to check who they’re sharing their location with.

Snapchat says more than 350 million people use Snap Map every month, and that these new features will allow families to stay connected when they’re out and about.

The new features announced Thursday will roll out over the coming weeks.

Snapchat first launched Family Center in 2022 to allow parents to gain insight into how their teens are using the social network app. In response, the company deployed a hub increased pressure from lawmakers who want social media apps to better protect young users of their services.

Since rolling out the hub, Snapchat has updated it additional functions from time to time to help parents protect their teenagers. However, parents may not even know the tools exist. Earlier this year, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel revealed that 20 million teenagers use Snapchat in the United States and only about 200,000 parents use the family center controls.