Snapchat: The Number One Grooming Platform in UK Police Records
What every parent needs to know
There is a statistic I want to say to every parent who has ever said ‘at least it’s not TikTok.’
According to data from UK police forces, Snapchat is involved in 40 to 48% of all Sexual Communication with a Child offences recorded where the platform can be identified1. Not TikTok. Not Instagram. Snapchat. In the year to March 2025, of the 2,111 offences where the police could name the platform, 40% occurred on Snapchat2. It has held that position as the most-used platform for online grooming in UK police records since the offence was created in 2017.
What that statistic means and what it does not mean. It does not mean that using Snapchat will put your child in danger. The vast majority of young people on Snapchat use it exactly as intended, to share moments with friends, to keep up with people they know, to send silly filters back and forth.
What the statistic means is that something about how Snapchat is built makes it the platform of choice for adults who want to exploit children. Understanding what that something is, and knowing what to do about it, is the whole point of this post.
Why Is Snapchat Linked to So Much Online Grooming?
Snapchat has four design choices that, individually, seem reasonable but together, they create conditions that predators have learned to exploit systematically.
Snaps, by default, delete themselves after they are viewed. The appeal to teenagers is obvious, as it lowers the stakes of what they share. But it also means there is no evidence trail. If an adult uses Snapchat to groom a child over weeks or months, those conversations are gone. The child may not remember the details and the parent will never see them; trust me when I say that law enforcement will find the recovery of evidence significantly harder than on platforms where messages persist3.
Quick Add, recently renamed Find Friends, recommends people by using signals such as mutual friends, contacts and existing social connections. Because users often do not know why someone has been recommended, it can make unsolicited contact appear more trustworthy4.
Snap Map allows users to see where their friends are in real time. On its own, this feature is opt-in and friends-only. But there is a public element as Stories posted to ‘Our Story’ near a location are visible to anyone looking at the map. A predator can open Snap Map, search for a named school, and see the Stories posted by students there. That is not a theoretical concern. A lawsuit filed on 25 June 2026 in Missouri, alleging that Snapchat’s design enabled a 25-year-old predator to groom and assault a 12-year-old girl, specifically includes evidence that a 133-page manual circulating on the dark web, known as the Sextortion Handbook, instructs predators to use Snap Map to find students near named schools5.
Snapchat’s built-in AI chatbot has been a source of concern since it launched. The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office opened an investigation into it in 2023, provisionally finding that Snap had failed to adequately assess the privacy risks to several million UK users, including children aged 13 to 176. The ICO closed that investigation in May 2024, after Snap carried out a revised risk assessment which the regulator accepted. I tell you that, because I’d rather you had the full picture than just the alarming half of it. But it’s also worth remembering what the provisional finding tells us: a major regulator looked closely at how My AI was launched and found the risk assessment wanting. Unlike messages with friends, conversations with My AI are not automatically deleted. They are stored unless the user manually clears them and the chatbot has been documented advising teenagers on how to hide activity from parents.
What the Snapchat Lawsuits and Regulatory Action Reveal
Snap is currently facing lawsuits from multiple US state attorneys general, including Florida, Kansas, Texas and Arkansas, all alleging the platform knowingly endangered children through its design choices7.
The lawsuit filed on 25 June 2026 in Missouri is the most significant of the child safety cases. It includes evidence that Snap executives received the 133-page Sextortion Handbook in 2024, which explicitly focuses on using Snapchat’s features to target children. According to the complaint, that handbook instructs predators to use Quick Add (Find Friends) to connect with large numbers of children, Snap Map to find students near schools, and disappearing messages to avoid leaving evidence. Snap executives received this document. The question the lawsuit is asking is what they did with it8.
I am not going to prejudge the outcome of that litigation. What I will say is that when a document laying out exactly how predators use your platform’s features reaches your executives, the clock starts on how long you can credibly claim not to know.
There is a regulatory facet here too. On 26 March 2026, the European Commission opened a formal investigation into whether Snapchat breaches the Digital Services Act, specifically regarding the risk of grooming and criminal recruitment of minors, unsafe default settings and weak age verification9. That’s Brussels, not a plaintiff’s law firm, reaching broadly the same conclusion I’m setting out in this post: the design creates the risk, not just the users on it.
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What Snapchat Has Done to Improve Child Safety, and What Hasn’t Changed
To be fair: Snapchat has made improvements. Teen accounts are private by default. Under-13s who are detected are removed. Family Centre lets parents link to their child’s account and see activity summaries and was expanded again in January 2026 to show daily screen time and more detail on new friend connections. Ghost Mode has always been available in Snap Map.
What has not changed: disappearing messages are still the default. The friend-recommendation feature, now called Find Friends, is still on by default. The My AI chatbot is still present for all users and Family Centre, like Discord’s equivalent, shows you activity summaries but not message content.
These are not small gaps. They are the precise gaps that documented exploitation cases run through.
Snapchat Safety Settings Every Parent Should Check Right Now
Step 1: Snap Map. Open Snapchat on your child’s device. Pinch the screen on the camera view to bring up Snap Map. Tap the settings icon (top right). Set location sharing to Ghost Mode. This stops your child’s location appearing on anyone’s map. If they want to share their location with close friends, they can choose specific people, but Ghost Mode should be the default.
Step 2: Who can contact your child. Go to Settings, then Privacy Controls, then Contact Me. Set this to Friends only, not Everyone. This prevents strangers from sending your child direct messages.
Step 3: Quick Add / Find Friends. In Settings, go to Privacy Controls, then See Me in Quick Add, and turn it off. Snapchat has renamed this feature Find Friends in the app, though the settings menu wording hasn’t caught up yet. Turning it off prevents your child from being recommended to strangers.
Step 4: My AI. Through Family Centre, parents can disable My AI for their child’s account. This is worth doing.
Step 5: Set up Family Centre. You need a Snapchat account. Go to Settings, then Family Centre, and follow the prompts. Your child will need to scan a QR code to link the accounts. You will then receive a weekly summary of who they have been chatting with and how long they spend on the app.
For teachers and DSLs:
The 40 to 48% UK police data is worth including in any parent workshop or safeguarding training. It is the most concrete UK-specific figure available on platform-specific grooming risk.
If a child discloses contact with an adult that started or continued on Snapchat, the disappearing message architecture means there may be no digital evidence. Encourage the child to describe the content of conversations rather than assuming a screenshot will be available.
CEOP (ceop.police.uk) is the relevant reporting route for suspected grooming. The IWF’s Report Remove tool helps under-18s remove sexual images shared online.
Why Snapchat Safety Settings Aren’t Enough on Their Own
Parental controls on Snapchat are imperfect. Ghost Mode can be turned off. Find Friends can be re-enabled. Family Centre depends on your child’s co-operation to set up. None of these tools replaces the ultimate parental control, having open, non-judgmental conversations at home.
The safest children are not the ones with the most restrictions. They are the ones who know they can come to a parent or trusted adult if something feels wrong, without fear of losing their phone or getting in trouble. That is the environment you want to create for them.
If your child uses Snapchat, tell them what disappearing messages actually mean for them. Tell them that the person on the other end can screenshot, screen-record, or simply describe what was said to someone else. The sense of privacy those messages create is partly an illusion, and they deserve to know that.
As always, thank you for your support. Please share this across your social media, and if you do have any comments, questions, or concerns, then feel free to reach out to me via the Social page, as I am always happy to spend some time helping to protect children online.
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NSPCC. ‘Data shows how criminals are using private messaging platforms to manipulate and groom children.’ November 2025. nspcc.org.uk. Based on data from 44 UK police forces covering the year to March 2025. 40% figure from 2,111 offences where platform was identified. Accessed 29 July 2026.
NSPCC. As above. Note: a separate NSPCC report published November 2024 (’Online grooming crimes against children increase by 89% in six years’, nspcc.org.uk) covers the year to March 2024 and reports 48%, based on 1,824 offences where the platform was known. The 40–48% range spans these two adjacent reporting periods, not one figure. Accessed 29 July 2026.
Multiple US lawsuits, including state attorney general filings, cite disappearing messages as a design feature that removes evidence useful to grooming investigations. See Arkansas Attorney General press release, 25 June 2026. Accessed 29 July 2026.
Social Media Victims Law Center. Press release re J.F. lawsuit, 25 June 2026. socialmediavictims.org. Names Quick Add (now Find Friends) as a mechanism connecting children to predators. Accessed 29 July 2026.
Social Media Victims Law Center. J.F. lawsuit press release, 25 June 2026. socialmediavictims.org. References the Sextortion Handbook and its instructions for using Snap Map near schools. Accessed 29 July 2026.
UK ICO. ‘UK Information Commissioner issues preliminary enforcement notice against Snap.’ 6 October 2023, ico.org.uk. Investigation closed 21 May 2024: ‘We warn organisations must not ignore data protection risks as we conclude Snap My AI chatbot investigation’, ico.org.uk. Accessed 29 July 2026.
Florida Attorney General press release, 21 April 2025, myfloridalegal.com. Kansas Attorney General press release, 23 September 2025, ag.ks.gov. Texas Attorney General press release, 11 February 2026, texasattorneygeneral.gov. Arkansas Attorney General filing, 25 June 2026, per Arkansas Advocate. Accessed 29 July 2026.
Social Media Victims Law Center. J.F. lawsuit press release, 25 June 2026. socialmediavictims.org. The 133-page Sextortion Handbook is named as evidence. Snap executives confirmed as recipients. Accessed 29 July 2026.
European Commission. ‘Commission investigates Snapchat’s compliance with child protection rules under the Digital Services Act.’ 26 March 2026, digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu. Accessed 29 July 2026.
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