Snapchat starts disabling friend-finder feature for UK children, regulator says

British media regulator Ofcom announced on Friday that Snapchat has started disabling the "Find Friends" feature by default for child users in the UK, marking a significant step to mitigate the dangers of online grooming. This feature, which aids users in discovering and adding new contacts, makes it more challenging for strangers to reach out to children on the image-sharing social media platform.

Ofcom considers Snapchat among the largest and most popular online services utilized by British children. In May, the regulator reported that 32% of children aged 8 to 12 in Britain used Snapchat, despite the platform's minimum age requirement of 13. Oliver Griffiths, director of Ofcom's Online Safety Group, deemed the change "long overdue" and stated that the organization would closely monitor the rollout of the enhanced protection this month.

Snapchat had pledged to implement such a change in May and recently informed the regulator that effective age verification for users under 18 should be operational by the end of the year. Although Snapchat did not respond to a request for comment, previous concerns have been raised about online grooming on social media platforms.

A 2025 analysis of British police data by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children revealed that 40% of sexual communication offenses involving a child, where a platform was identified, occurred on Snapchat. Ofcom has long advocated for major tech firms to implement stronger anti-grooming measures, emphasizing that online grooming can have "devastating, lifelong consequences" for children.

The regulator also reissued a warning to other tech companies neglecting grooming risks, warning them of potential fines up to 10% of their global revenue.