It certainly is an unusual time we find ourselves in, confined to our houses. One advantage of this happening in our device saturated world is the abundance of social media platforms, and ways to connect virtually.

This week we have been made aware of an app called “House Party” which provides people with an opportunity to get together remotely and have a ‘house party’ together.

As a school, we have been using the Google Meet platform, and it certainly has been great to see people's faces and to connect remotely with them, so we do understand the importance for teens to be able to connect with each other. We would just like to remind you and them to do it safely.

House Party was acquired by Epic Games in 2019, and you may recognise this company as the one that is also behind Fortnite. Its resurgence is of course due to current social distance requirements across the world.

Some things we would like you to be aware of with this app:

1. It is recommended for 13 years and above

2. It has access to your daughter’s images and videos, and maybe being used to harvest data for the purposes of advertising.

3. The app asks you to enable location which is believed to be accurate to within five metres, compromising personal safety, so it is not a good idea to enable this feature.

4. It offers friend suggestions of people that you may or may not know.

This is a good reminder to have a conversation with your daughter about how to use these apps in line with your family values.

Kathryn Gray
Head of Middle School