We have received information from the Education & Early Years Safeguarding Team about the popular new app ‘Houseparty.’
Based on this information, we would suggest that children should always be supervised on this app. Please contact school via the office if you have any specific concerns.
Please see below:
Dear Colleagues
I hope you are all safe and well. The Education Safeguarding Team have had numerous queries and safeguarding concerns raised about an APP called House Party in respect to live streaming.
The house party is taking social media by storm. It’s from the same company that created Fortnite. Over the last 48 hours there has been lots of misinformation over social media about it. As with all live-streaming platforms, screenshots, unsolicited messages and self-generated sexualised imagery can put young people at risk.
Links to ‘rooms’ can also be shared publicly – to other platforms which could see uninvited users joining.
‘Rooms’ should be locked to prevent uninvited guests from joining – remember all rooms will lock by default if a user enables ‘private mode’.
If an uninvited guest joins a room they can easily ‘friend’ others taking part in the live stream.
It appears that when a friend is invited, their friends can also join a ‘room’ without the invitation. Therefore potentially increase the opportunity to cyber-bully and troll others.
Safer schools have also just tweeted the link and a short animation as well.
Here is a web link to the blog. https://www.ineqe.com/2020/03/30/houseparty-how-safe-is-the-app-taking-the-uk-by-storm/