Parents' Council issues warning about new phone app

on 03/01/2013 15:20:04

The National Parents' Council has today criticised a new mobile phone app, saying that it could facilitate cyber bullying and even paedophilia.

Snapchat allows a person to send someone else a picture or video which will disappear, without a trace, after a few seconds.

It has already become hugely popular and is now used more than 50 million times a day.

A spokesperson with the National Parents' Council, Post Primary, Jackie O'Callaghan, said that mobile phone operators need to make parents aware of these potential dangers.

If a parent goes in to a shop with a young child, 12 or 13, and they're buying a phone, I think there's a huge duty of care on these people to say to them: 'Y'know, well you need to know exactly what they have on this phone because it has the ability to give them a, b, c, d'.

"You need to know not only what they can log on to Facebook, or YouTube or whatever, but they can also have apps on their phone that can provide them with access or people with access to them that you need to be aware of."

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