You must be at least 13 to use Snapchat; if you are under 18, a parent or guardian must give permission, and that adult becomes legally responsible for how the child uses the app.
Parents who permit their children to use Snapchat become legally bound by these Terms and responsible for their child's conduct on the platform, while children under 13 are prohibited from using the service — though enforcement relies primarily on self-reported age at signup.
How other platforms handle this
engage in any of the foregoing in connection with the use, creation, development, modification, prompting, fine-tuning, training, testing, benchmarking or validation of any machine learning tool, model, system, algorithm, product or other technology.
We don't want our models to be used to create cyberweapons or malicious code that could cause significant damage if deployed. We want to support the security community through education about attack techniques and defenses, helping with CTFs and security research, assisting with penetration testing,...
Except where prohibited by law, you may not, nor may you permit any third party, directly or indirectly to: export the Services, which may be subject to export restrictions imposed by US law, including US Export Administration Regulations (15 C.F.R. Chapter VII); engage in any activity that may be i...
Snapchat's age verification relies on self-reporting, and COPPA requires verifiable parental consent for children under 13 — weak enforcement of this threshold has been a significant regulatory concern for Snap.
(1) REGULATORY FRAMEWORK: This provision directly implicates COPPA 16 CFR Part 312, enforced by the FTC, which requires verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13; GDPR Art. 8 (age of consent for information society services — 16 in most EU member states, though member states may lower this to 13); UK Age Appropriate Design Code (Children's Code) under UK GDPR, enforced by the ICO; California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (AB 2273, effective 2024); and KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act, currently pending). Snap paid an FTC fine in 2014 for misrepresenting its data collection practices and has been subject of ongoing regulatory scrutiny regarding minor users. (2)
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Regulatory citations, enforcement risk, and due diligence action items.
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