A Tinder-like app popular among teenagers and young adults has allegedly been used to extort users by tricking them into sending sexually explicit photos, a problem that internet safety watchdogs say is indicative of the challenges of keeping young people safe on social media.
The app, Wizz, allows users to scroll through profiles that show a person’s picture, first name, age, state and zodiac sign.
Wizz advertises the app as a “safe space” to meet new friends and allows users as young as 13 to join and connect with users of a similar age.
Watch the latest News on Channel 7 or stream for free on 7plus >>
But child safety watchdogs have questioned whether the app’s safety system is effective.
The app, which is based in France, has been downloaded more than 14 million times worldwide since it launched in 2019 and more than doubled its monthly active users in the last year, according to Sensor Tower, a company that tracks apps.
It’s at times ranked in the top 10 social networking apps on the Apple App Store.
That makes Wizz a relatively successful but still niche social network — the kind that can avoid the scrutiny heaped on bigger tech platforms.
Since Wizz is a French app, it does not have to report child safety issues to authorities in other countries, experts told NBC News.
The app also has no parental controls, according to Bark, a company that makes parental control products.
The US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children division senior vice president John Shehan said his nonprofit organisation, tasked by the US government with tracking reports of child sexual abuse material online, has received more than 100 reports from members of the public about minors allegedly sextorted on Wizz this year, putting the app behind only Snapchat and Instagram for such reports.
Sextortion is an increasingly common online crime in which people are enticed into sending sexually explicit photos.
Once the photos are sent, the receiver of the images threatens to share them online or with family or friends unless the victim sends money.
According to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P), a national charity focused on child safety, Wizz was the seventh-most mentioned platform in sextortion reports to its tip line between June 2022 and last month.
Director of the C3P’s tip line Stephen Sauer said they received 75 reports in relation to Wizz since January 1, compared to 15 reports in the six months prior.
In the last six months, around 90 per cent of C3P’s reports involving Wizz were related to the alleged sextortion of young people, he said.
He added that some young users in these cases, ranging from 13 to 17 years old, viewed or talked about Wizz as a dating app.
“They are often looking to connect with other similar-aged peers through the app, and that’s how they get extorted,” Sauer said.
When contacted about alleged safety issues on the app, Wizz provided a press release in which CEO Aymeric Roffé said: “Wizz understands parents’ concerns about their teenagers’ online safety. We are committed to providing a safe platform for everyone, including young adults and teenagers.”
Wizz does make some efforts to prevent adults from interacting with minors. The app uses third-party services to moderate complaints made by users through the app, according to its press release.
Wizz matches users with individuals in their age range to ensure user safety and estimates users’ ages when they upload a selfie through an artificial intelligence tool provided by Yoti, an identity technology company.
According to Wizz’s privacy policy, if Yoti cannot provide an accurate enough age estimation, the app uses AI data company Hive to manually attempt to validate a user’s age.
The use of AI to determine ages has been scrutinised, as such systems can perpetuate and even exaggerate human biases.
New Jersey State Police’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit detective sergeant Katie Feehan said Wizz’s age verification process gives young users a false sense of security that they are talking to users their age.
“Any app that has a chat feature and kids are on is potentially dangerous,” she added.
“And if these sextortion bad actors are on the Wizz app, it’s something that parents need to know about and kids need to know, you know, the dangers of using it.”
Bark, the parental control company, criticised the app’s age verification system in a review on its website, which said the “risk of predation is huge on Wizz.”
In lieu of controls for parents, some schools have started to step in to warn parents about the potential uses of Wizz.
In the last four months, five schools in the United States and the United Kingdom shared online safety infographics and guides about Wizz with parents.
If you’d like to view this content, please adjust your .
To find out more about how we use cookies, please see our Cookie Guide.