Netsafe and Police are warning young people to take care and be cautious when using video chatting app Houseparty.
The smartphone app has soared in popularity, alongside Zoom, during the pandemic as people look to keep in touch while in isolation.
“It entertains you for like the whole lockdown because you’ve always got someone to call on there now cause everyone’s on it,” India Higby said.
“It's like really fun because it's like if you play games with friends in person you can do it on technology,” Matthew Gaze said.
The app allows users to interrupt friends calls or add a friend to an existing call with no warning, unless the chat is locked, or the user is in ‘private mode.’
“I’ve been like on calls with my friends and then their friends that I don’t know have joined the call and then my friend has left so I'm just on a call with a random person,” Miss Higby said.
Miss Higby advised people to ‘lock’ their Houseparty chats unless they wanted uninvited company.
Netsafe has raised concerns about bullying and unwanted contact.
“For parents they need to recognise that these products are not something you should just leave young children on for a long periods unmonitored and very young children shouldn’t be there along at all,” Netsafe chief executive Martin Cocker said.
He said to be safe, no matter what platform is being used to communicate, users should only reveal information or do things that wouldn’t cause them harm if they became public.
Mr Cocker said adults need to also be aware of the risks online during the pandemic, with grooming, revenge porn, malicious websites and scams spiking.
“They know that there's lots of stuff in these feeds that is valuable to them to exploit later on so they’re going to invest very heavily to try and breach the security of these businesses,” he said.
Zoom is trying to fix its privacy and security issues after daily users rose to more than 200 million last month, which the platform wasn’t prepared for.
“Be cautious and careful about what you’re sharing even if it’s on a video conference backed by a big organisation,” Mr Cocker said.
A police spokesperson said any social media app can be abused and used for bullying, harassment, and child exploitation.
‘Anyone who uses Houseparty should be aware of the safety risks, including that people can record images and videos, and that users may be exposed to inappropriate content,’ the spokesperson said.
Parenting Place chief executive Greg Fleming said parents should ask their kids about their video chat apps and keep communication lines open.
“Really the only filter that ever works is the one that you can put in your own child's head and the way that you can do that is through having a great relationship with them,” he said.
He said online communication is a blessing for staying connected during the pandemic and parents shouldn’t stress about their child’s technology use increasing.
“With our 10-year-old, he's gone from having like 45 minutes to an hour allowance a day to having more like three to four hours and he spends nearly all of it in chatrooms with his friends,” Mr Fleming said.
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