Saif bin Zayed witnesses the launch of the "Family Center" feature in the Snapchat application in cooperation with the Ministry of Possibilities

Lieutenant-General Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, witnessed the launch of the "Family Center" feature, a new feature for parental control within the Snapchat application.

The launch came in a fruitful cooperation between the Ministry of Possibilities and Snap Inc., to support the efforts of the UAE in its quest to enhance the quality of digital life, ensure the security of the Internet, and provide a safe environment especially for children, by making the most of modern technologies.

The launch ceremony was attended by Her Excellency Ohoud bint Khalfan Al Roumi, Minister of State for Government Development and the Future, His Excellency Omar bin Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, His Excellency Abdullah Nasser Lootah, Director General of the Prime Minister’s Office, and Huda Al Hashemi, Assistant Minister of Cabinet Affairs. For Strategy Affairs, HE Saeed Al Eter, Head of the Media Office of the UAE Government, and representatives from Snapchat.

His Highness and the audience witnessed the registration of the first Emirati family to take advantage of this feature.

The “Family Center” feature reflects the nature of the relationship between parents and children as if it were in the real world, where parents know who their children’s friends are and when to meet them, without seeing their private conversations, and this feature aims to enable parents and their children, children and young people to maintain privacy their children and their independence.

Through the “Family Center” feature, parents can easily and confidentially report any abusive or suspicious accounts directly by communicating with Snap’s trust and safety team, which is a dedicated unit that works around the clock to protect Snapchat users, and Snap has also launched new tools to encourage action Constructive and open conversations over the Internet.

Snap has communicated with families to understand the needs of parents and their children to know their views on standards of parenting and privacy, knowing that they differ from one person to another. Snap also consulted online safety and security experts to take their opinions into consideration, to help develop the "Family Center" feature new.

From that, Snap aimed to develop a set of tools specifically designed to show human behaviors on the ground and enhance trust and cooperation between parents and their children.

Commenting on the launch of the new feature, the Ministry of Possibilities confirmed that cooperation with Snap in launching the “Family Center” feature on the Snapchat application is a step that reflects the commitment of the UAE government to provide its citizens and residents with all the appropriate tools that guarantee their safety, protect their privacy on the Internet, and enhance their confidence. In the use of digital platforms, this feature would consolidate the ministry's dedication to enhancing the level of protection while using technical networks and social media platforms.

The ministry stated that this cooperation with a well-known and world-famous platform such as Snapchat will help enhance efforts to educate all citizens and residents in the country and enable them to protect their children and loved ones.

For his part, George Wolfhart, Head of Public Policy at Snap Inc, said: “The continued growth of the Snapchat platform is linked to user satisfaction with the privacy and security protection tools that we have been keen to add to our platform, and with the launch of the “Family Center” feature, we affirm our commitment to privacy and security by adding New levels of protection and new communication channels for families to engage in constructive conversations about online threats, and we are confident that the Family Center will set the new standard for online protection and security.”

The Family Center feature will introduce new additional levels of protection over existing security standards that have been specifically designed for this area with children in mind, for example, first, children must be friends on the Snapchat platform before they can communicate with each other .

Secondly, friend lists are private, children cannot have public accounts open, while other protection tools make it difficult for strangers to find them, as they appear on the platform as “suggested friends” or in search results in a limited number of cases, such as there are friends common between them.

Snap plans to add additional security features to the Family Center feature in the coming months, including new content control tools for parents, and allowing children and young adults to notify their parents when communicating with Snap's trust and safety team about a suspicious account or abusive content. A new feature that allows parents to see new friends added by their children.

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