A Quebec mother is warning other parents about the potential dangers of a popular video chat app called live.ly.

Samantha Theoret told CTV Montreal that she witnessed an adult male performing a sexual act in a chat room on the app on her 10-year-old son’s phone on Friday night.

She said her son Evan had already gone to bed when she noticed a buzzing from the old phone she and her husband gave him to play games on.

“I just went over to it to turn off the volume, but when I looked at it, I saw that it was this weird long name and it was saying (this person) 'is inviting you to a group chat,’” Theoret explained.

Theoret said she was curious to know more, so she opened up the live.ly app and discovered it was an online video chatting platform that anyone can join.

“I said to my husband, ‘You know, anyone could just log on to this and do whatever they want’ and, like, not three minutes later did somebody log on and start being inappropriate,” she said. “It was a man and he had the camera pointed at his genitals and he was touching himself.”

Evan explained that he came across the live.ly app while he was using another app called musical.ly, which allows users to create their own music videos. He said he had only downloaded the live.ly app the day before his mother stumbled upon it.

“I never video chatted before, I just made a livestream,” he said. “It's kind of like a Facebook Live, like other people can't talk to you or anything.”

Although Theoret didn’t contact police about what she viewed on the app, cyber security expert Terry Cutler said she should.

“If there are any underage people in the room then it could be an act of sexual harassment toward a child,” Cutler said.

Police can track down the offender’s locating using an IP address, but it’s more difficult if the suspect is in a different country.

Cutler also advised parents to regularly check their children’s phones so they’re aware of what apps they’re using and what safety features they include. He said chat room apps like live.ly often don’t have moderators to block certain participants from entering online conversations.

“If they don't secure their communications, for example, they set it to public instead of maybe private chat room, then for sure any guest can come in,” he said.

By default, the accounts on many of these apps are automatically set to public, so it’s up to the user to manually adjust the settings for more privacy, Cutler said.

Theoret goes one step further than Cutler when it comes to the live.ly app.

“If your child has that app on their phone, just delete it,” she recommended.

With a report from CTV Montreal’s Derek Conlon