Is Canva Safe? A Review for Parents

Harmful Content 😲

Canva’s breadth is both its appeal and its danger. It has an appealing interface for children; it’s much easier to get started with than other design platforms and/or tools. During our testing, we found a few areas of concern. Across all projects, you can invite anyone to collaborate with you. There are no reporting or safety features. In addition to this, stumbling upon explicit content is rather easy given Canva’s broad stock library of images and videos. There are also Generative AI tools that will always carry risks. Finally, the ability for other companies to integrate their services with Canva (with Canva’s approval) provides access to virtually unlimited tools that may not be appropriate for children.

Predation 🚨

Canva has collaboration tools (think Google Docs, but more expansive), where users can message each other with no restrictions. However, unlike social media, random users cannot join projects unless they have an invite or a link. If using Canva for Education, teachers can collaborate with students and gain access to their documents. This creates a potentially predatory environment that has no reporting or safety features. A former teacher in Jacksonville, Florida, was arrested for attempting to groom a student on Canva.

Privacy 🔒

Canva offers many privacy options, including the option to opt out of training their AI models. All other regions of concern are up to the user to decide whether or not to use. For example, by default, other users cannot access your designs. If you invite another user to your design, or if they interact with your published website, they will be able to make unfiltered comments.

Parental Controls ✅

Canva is designed for users 13+. That being said, they have no parental controls whatsoever. Many institutions use Canva for Education, which still does not provide any parental controls, but it does have many guardrails that are not available to regular child users. This includes filtering inappropriate stock images, but it does still allow collaboration and website creation. Canva for Education is FERPA, COPPA, and GDPR compliant.

Bark can also help you keep your child safer on Canva. With Bark, you can:

• Block Canva
• Manage when your child can use it throughout the day

So, should my kid download it?

If your kid is creative and only uses Canva for solo projects, it may be a great tool for them to design with. We recommend Canva for kids aged 11+.