Several Florida school districts warn against ‘Saturn’ app. What is it?

Not even two weeks into the new school year and parents are already being warned about a new app.

Saturn, a scheduling app for high schoolers, has caused concern for both parents and school officials across Florida, with many school districts blocking it from their networks

Since the first day of school, numerous posts from parents have blown up online about the dangers of an app that shows the location and personal information of high schoolers. After a week, school districts started taking steps to warn others about Saturn and how it not be used on school property.

What exactly is Saturn and why is it so controversial? Here's why adults are cracking down on this scheduling app.

TikTok banned too? Florida schools could soon join state universities in banning TikTok on devices, networks

What is the Saturn app?

According to the creators, Saturn is a calendar app that "gives students control over their schedules, activities, and connections." The originally Connecticut-based app is specifically designed for high school students, allowing them to upload their schedules to the app, track their homework and share their activities with their friends.

Saturn has now grown to over 16,000 schools across the country. To make community-centered digital hubs, creators say they don't allow students from other schools to join others.

How does the Saturn app work?

Once a student's account is verified, they can take a photo of their schedule or upload it into the app. They can add in their classes, sports, club meetings, and other after-school activities. Students can also follow their classmates and friends, looking at their statuses to what they're up to.

Other features include customizing their profile, tracking much of your day is left, keeping track of what your workload looks like, and promoting events to classmates.

Does the Saturn app connect to other social media?

Saturn allows students to connect all their social media accounts to Saturn, including TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and Venmo.

Are parents and teachers allowed on the app?

No, according to the website.

They claim that the app is strictly designed to be used by students.

How do they know a student is signing up for their specific school?

Saturn claims they go through a verifying process, saying they rely on several factors including school emails and contact book overlap. Unverified users can still use the app; however, they cannot interact or chat with verified users.

Why are parents and school officials warning against Saturn?

In a now-viral Facebook post, a parent first posted on Aug. 10 warning parents about the app and that he was able to make an account for his daughter's school despite not having a school email and lying about his personal information.

"At this point (after making the account), I have not had to verify anything except a phone number. Not my name, birthday, where I lived, email, relation to the school, etc," Chris Cullum wrote on Facebook. "I was just a 41-year-old man using the Saturn app to gain access to 350 new friends.

He said the app at that time indicated they would need to verify you are a student to see the schedules of the other students but he said he was able to input a fake schedule by choosing from a list of teachers the app provided and he could see who was in any class. He was also able to see a girl's athletic team roster.

He noted that a predator or intruder could potentially compile a full schedule for any student in the app without ever having to fully log in but it still allows anyone in the school to see any student's schedule, whether it's a bully, an unwanted admirer or a stalker.

Cullum ended his post by saying that instead of shaming parents, he wanted to encourage those to talk to their kids about the dangers of apps like this.

Commenters agreed with his post, highlighting his points of how their students' locations can potentially be tracked by anyone at any time and that their information can also be used against them for cyberbullying.

"Great post brother. Parenting in this digital age only gets more difficult every day," wrote one parent. "Stay diligent parents. It only takes one mistake/bad interaction to alter a young life."

What school districts have warned against using Saturn?

• Brevard County

• Lake County

• Pinellas County

• Santa Rosa County

• Seminole County

• Volusia County

What have school officials said about the app?

Florida Today reported that Brevard Public Schools officials emailed parents on Wednesday saying they were aware of the concerns. They added that the app was blocked on the school district's Wi-Fi.

“Since this app is available to anyone who wants to use it, there is no way to ensure app users are students,” the statement said. “While it appears the app creators have recently increased security measures, Brevard Public Schools does not endorse this app and staff will not ask students to use Saturn.”

Just an hour north, Seminole County officials alerted parents about the dangers of Saturn on Facebook. They sent out a letter on Tuesday, along with photos of what the app looks like.

Police departments in Sanford and Longwood even wrote up their warnings about Saturn.

"There is no requirement to verify who is on the app at all. Please talk to your students about the importance of keeping personal information private," Longwood Police Department officials wrote.

Have the creators of Saturn released a statement about the backlash to their app?

On Aug. 13, the creators released a formal statement about the safety concerns. They said they have strengthened their verification system and walled off unverified users from others.

"Our rapid growth has invited reasonable questions from students, parents, and schools about who we are, what we do, and how we aim to keep school communities and students safe. We want to be clear: our most important job is keeping students safe—and we take this responsibility very seriously. We’re constantly working to make Saturn safer for every user on the platform."

"A big part of this commitment is aiming to make sure that everyone who is part of a school community on Saturn is actually a student at that school. Verification is important not only for safety but also for protecting the integrity of each community on the platform. Verifying students on Saturn relies on a combination of different processes and dozens of signals, including contact book overlap and/or school email verification."

Their latest updates claim to make safety improvements to their platform. On their website, they said they maintain rigorous moderation in public forums and have a strict community guidelines policy that prohibits:

• Violence

• Nudity, including graphic sexual images or descriptions

• Threats

• Promoting self-harm

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: 'Saturn' app raises safety concerns for many Florida schools, parents