How To Keep Tabs On Your Child's Phone

Child with glasses using a laptop computer

Google has added more and more parental control-manner features to Android over the years. Yous can give a child his or her own restricted user business relationship, lock access to a specific app, or restrict what websites kids are allowed to use.

Depending on the version of Android you take and your device manufacturer, yous may not take some of these options — or they may look a little different.

Restrict Access to a Single App

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If your device has Android 5.0 Lollipop or newer, you can "pin" a specific app to your telephone or tablet's screen. You tin can then hand your Android tablet or telephone to a kid and that kid won't be able to go out the specific app until you lot enter a Pivot.

This ways you could launch a game and pivot it, handing it over and knowing a kid won't become through your email or wait up any inappropriate content. Or, if yous want your kids using a specific educational app, you tin ensure they'll stay in that app.

To use this characteristic, yous'll need to open up the Settings screen, select Security, and activate "Screen pinning" under "Avant-garde." Tell Android to inquire for your PIN or unlock pattern before unpinning the app. Next, open up the app yous tin can to pin, tap the "Overview" button to show the list of open applications as cards, and swipe upwards. Tap the pin on the bottom-right corner of an app's carte.

To exit a pinned app, hold the "Overview" push. You lot'll be asked for your PIN or pattern if y'all configured that option.

Set Up a Restricted Profile on a Tablet

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Android Lollipop offers restricted profiles, a feature that arrived in Android 4.3. Restricted profiles are only available on tablets — not smartphones. With a restricted profile, y'all can create a special user business relationship that merely has admission to specific apps and content yous allow.

(Google added multiple user accounts to Android in Android four.2, but just for tablets. With Android 5.0 Lollipop, multiple user accounts are at present bachelor on phones as well as tablets. Notwithstanding, restricted profiles are still just available on tablets.)

To create a restricted profile, head to the Settings screen, tap Users, tap Add together User, and tap Restricted Profile. You can then lock downwards the profile and switch between the restricted profile and principal user account from the lock screen. (Switching back to the main user account volition require your Pin or whatever other unlock method you utilise.)

Theoretically, restricted profiles let y'all to restrict access to specific content in some apps. In practice, app developers have to implement this. You'll mostly be able to choose which of the apps installed on your device the kid'south profile has access to.

Prepare Web Filtering

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Unfortunately, Android'south restricted profile feature doesn't provide a way to restrict developed content from being accessed through Google Chrome or other web browsers.

If you want to do this, you have two options. You could visit Google Play on your Android device and install a parental-command or spider web-filtering app. Or, if the Android device will just be using your Wi-Fi network to access the web, you could configure parental controls on your router. if your router doesn't offer such built-in parental control features, yous could switch your DNS server to OpenDNS and employ its parental controls.

We'd encourage you to utilize OpenDNS and its well-regarded parental controls if possible, as many of the Android web-filtering apps seem to not piece of work likewise well. They may also require paid subscriptions.

Google Play Parental Controls

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The Google Play Shop has its own parental control features. To access them, open Google Play on a device, tap the Carte du jour button, tap Settings, and tap Parental Controls. Enter a special parental control Pin here and you can set age restrictions for what types of apps, movies, videos, music, and books a device can download. Anyone using the device won't be able to download or buy this type of content without the PIN. Withal, these restrictions simply apply to the Google Play Store — uncensored content is still available through the web browser.

You can also further lock down Google Play to block expensive in-app purchases.

Restrict Information Usage

Trusting your kids with their own smartphone is a large step. Trusting them with a metered data plan is…well, a bigger step. If you want to make sure your child doesn't get over your information cap, Android has a few settings congenital-in to help.

RELATED: How to Monitor (and Reduce) Your Data Usage on Android

Head to the main Settings menu, then Connections > Data usage. Tap on the "Usage" carte on the elevation, then you can set a warning based on how much data is allowed in your child's information program. Using data on Wi-Fi won't affect this meter. You lot might want to set up it a gigabyte or so below their actual data limit, so they'll know when to start taking it easy.

Yous can also enable the Data Saver option, which volition lower or restrict the data that'southward loaded by apps in the background. You can read more than about how information technology works here.

Or, if you lot adopt, you can ready data limits with your carrier. AT&T has a feature called Smart Limits you can enable for $5 a month and limit things by fourth dimension of mean solar day. Verizon has their FamilyBase service for $v a month, which will alert yous when your kid has used a certain amount of data. T-Mobile allows you to restrict data access at certain times of twenty-four hour period for gratis from the Family Allowances page, every bit does Dart from its Limits and Permissions page.

Other Parental Control Apps

Due to Android's flexibility, the Google Play Shop is full of "parental control" apps that provide some corporeality of lock-downward features. These will allow yous to ready a special application launcher that tin can only launch approved apps for a kid, for example. These shouldn't be quite every bit necessary if you have access to the "restricted profiles" characteristic. If you exercise accept access to the built-in Android parental control features above, the primary reason to install a split app is to restrict access to websites.

You could likewise use the guest account congenital into Android Lollipop for this, or create a divide user account (on tablets with Android 4.2 or later, or phones with Android v.0 or later on). These accounts can't exist "locked down" with parental controls, but they will ensure your kid is kept out of your primary user business relationship and so they tin't go through your email or tamper with other sensitive data.

The guest user account is unlike considering information technology can be wiped in between uses, while Android will preserve a standard user business relationship or restricted profile's data and settings.