A technical error in Facebook’s messaging app for kids, has exposed thousands of children to join chats with unauthorized users.

The Messenger Kids was launched in 2017 for kids under 13 years, the app gives a private” chat space for kids to talk with contacts that are approved by their parents.

According to a report from The Verge, the flaw allowed a  friend of a child to create a group chat in the app which  invited one or more of the second child’s parent-approved friends — that means a a friend can add secondary contacts to the chat without the approval by the parents of the first child. 

However, the company did not make a public disclosure of the safety issue. 

'We recently notified some parents of Messenger Kids account users about a technical error that we detected affecting a small number of group chats,' a Facebook representative said in a statement. 

'We turned off the affected chats and provided parents with additional resources on Messenger Kids and online safety.'