Sweden wants kids to become privacy pros with new social media app FantomApp
Sweden is giving kids a crash course in online privacy.
Illustration by Cybernews.
- Sweden’s data protection authority has launched FantomApp to help young people protect personal data online.
- The app targets 10- to 15-year-olds but is available to anyone through app stores or its website.
- FantomApp offers password checks, image blurring, and guides for safer social media settings.
- It also advises teens on cyberbullying, sextortion, hacked accounts, and online impersonation.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
On Monday, IMY, Sweden’s data protection authority, launched FantomApp, an app that helps young people protect their personal data on social media.
Research from the Internet Foundation shows that 86% of children and young people between the ages of 8 and 19 use social media daily. The same survey also shows that 85% of parents worry about not being able to protect their children online.
To protect young users online and help their parents in this task, FantomApp was created.
FantomApp is an application that offers tools and tutorials to help teenagers protect their social media accounts and manage their online presence.
It offers advice and tells young users what to do when they encounter problems, such as when they’ve become the victim of cyberbullying or sextortion, their accounts have been hacked, or someone else is impersonating them.
In addition, FantomApp has several built-in tools to help users safeguard their online privacy and protect their social media accounts. For example, FantomApp lets them test the strength of their passwords and blur and pixelate pictures to remain anonymous on social media.
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Lastly, FantomApp offers tutorials for each social network to learn which settings to enable or disable to protect their privacy, including removing geolocation data, hiding sensitive content, dealing with fake profiles, preventing AI from using their personal information as training data, and removing personalized ads.
FantomApp was developed by the French data protection authority, CNIL, and released in late 2025, supporting French and English. IMY has now translated and adapted the app to Swedish conditions.
“Social media is a big part of children's and young people's lives. Our hope is that FantomApp makes it easier for young people to increase their knowledge of data protection and their rights, but also to make life online safer,” Malin Blixt, Head of the Department for Guidance, Innovation, and Technology at IMY, says in a statement.
FantomApp is aimed at 10- to 15-year-olds, but is accessible to all via the App Store, Play Store, or its website.
