Is Saturn Safe? A Saturn App Review for Parents

Harmful Content 😲

It’s likely that some kids may use the messaging feature of the app to cyberbully and harass other kids. Or use it to post generally inappropriate content. The company states that they enforce a positive atmosphere on the app with their community guidelines, but every app and social media platform has community guidelines — and things will always fall through the cracks. 

There is also a potential for FOMO, as kids will be constantly aware of who is in what class and who has what after school activities. Kids are already hyper-aware of their friends’ whereabouts with current social media platforms, and Saturn is yet another one for kids to manage. 

Another red flag is that Saturn immediately requests to connect to your Snapchat account. If you connect your account, Saturn will have access to your display name on Snapchat as well as your Bitmoji avatar, if you have one. Snapchat has many safety issues of its own, which is why it’s a red flag for Saturn to encourage kids to connect it (or create a Snapchat account if they don’t already have one). 

Predation 🚨

A few days after the surge in popularity of Saturn in August 2023, they released a statement touting a suite of safety improvements to the app meant to help keep non-students out. This is important because one of the primary dangers of allowing an app to have access to student details and location is predators who may target kids. It could be easy enough for them to create an account and impersonate a new student.

The details of Saturn’s new verification process are still, unfortunately, vague. Here’s how they describe it on their Safety Center page:

What steps does Saturn take to verify that users go to high school?

We call this process “verification” and it’s an extremely important part of safeguarding our users. Verifying students on Saturn relies on a combination of different processes and signals — and where you go to school may impact how we are able to verify you. The signals include your contact book overlap and/or school email verification, among others. At many schools, email verification is not possible because the school doesn’t allow outside apps to use student emails for verification.

In other words, it’s unclear, and because of that, it’s possible that there are workarounds. For example: If one of the verification tools is simply contact numbers of fellow students in your phone, that means that someone who graduated last year could have access to the app if they still have friends in school. And for the opposite — what if a 10th grader is brand new to the district and doesn’t know anyone? Could they be unable to get verified?

Fortunately, if you’re not verified, you can’t chat or engage with verified users. The app actively limits this experience to keep real students safe.

Privacy 🔒

Users have the ability to hide their schedule from other users: 

• Navigate to your child’s profile. 
• Tap the Settings icon. 
• Tap “Edit Profile”.
• Scroll all the way down. 
• Toggle off “Schedule Visibility”.

Even with this setting, privacy is not something highly valued on Saturn. The whole point of the app is to connect with other student’s and view their schedule. Additionally, Saturn allows kids to connect their other social media to their profile, including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Venmo. 

Parental Controls ✅

Saturn does not have any parental controls, which is concerning considering it’s only supposed to be used by kids. But good thing Bark can help! 

Bark allows parents to:

• Block Saturn entirely, if needed. 
• Manage when your child can use it throughout the day. 

So, should my kid download it?

If your child is older, Saturn may an okay app to download. But for younger kids, the dangers are numerous and include possible predation, cyberbullying, inappropriate content, and more.